An emotional Shane O’Donnell struggled to find the words to sum up his inter-county career as his days in the Clare jersey came to an agonising end with defeat to Limerick in their All-Ireland semi-final at Croke Park.
The 2013 All-Ireland champion described it as an “honour” to represent his county and assured Banner fans everywhere that he “enjoyed every minute of it”.
“It’s been an honour to be able to wear the Clare jersey, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” O’Donnell told the RTÉ Sport panel after the Treaty County had pipped the Banner men late on in Headquarters.
“But I’ve always had a somewhat trite response when people ask me about my career, that I’ll reflect on it when it’s done,” he added.
“So I don’t have an answer for you right now, but maybe in, in time I’ll be able to look back on it.
“But yeah, I’ve loved every minute of it. The guys in the dressing room, every player I’ve ever played with in the Clare jersey, I’ve been proud to stand beside them.
“They showed out there today, and I’m always proud wearing this jersey.”
Clare pushed Limerick to the pin of their collar and almost pulled off an upset to reach the decider against Galway in two weeks’ time.
Clare and Limerick served up a predictably physical affair
O’Donnell put Clare’s aggressive, front-foot performance partly down to smart tactics – but mostly down to attitude.
“Obviously, you have to get the tactics right so that you have an opportunity to actually apply the pressure and apply the aggression,” the Éire Óg Inis man explained.
“But once you have the tactics, then it’s all about the kind of pressure you can apply on the ball and the work you can do and get off the shoulder and all those things. So that’s what the narrative has been all week.
”So you know, tactical master classes and everything really are in a combination of the application and the actual tactics themselves.
“We just wanted to be able to get in their face and be aggressive and make it a tough game and bring it down to a fight.”
Clare led by five points at the break having dominated large parts of the opening 35 minutes. O’Donnell felt his team were right where they wanted to be hading into the second period.
“We were happy at half-time with where we were at, but wanted to push on and struggled to get a ball in our hands for the second half, especially to our puckouts, and [Limerick] just started to come back at us,” he said.
“So yeah, that was disappointing. Obviously the result, extraordinarily disappointing.”
Those words do not sum up his career, but certainly his final day.
Limerick v Clare full highlights