Shane O’Donnell has revealed that he injured his hamstring in training just last Tuesday evening and thought he was ‘100 percent gone’ for the All-Ireland hurling final.
The experienced Clare forward scored two points in yesterday’s extra-time victory over Cork and played a central role in helping to haul the team back from seven points down after a slow start.
He ended up being taken off in extra-time with cramp on his right leg, explaining that it eventually gave out after ‘compensating for how much I was holding the left leg’.
The Ennis man, who famously blasted 3-3 in Clare’s 2013 final replay win over Cork, also suffered a shoulder injury yesterday but only revealed the full extent of his hamstring problem today when speaking at the team’s hotel base in Ballsbridge before departing for home.
“I went and pulled my hamstring on Tuesday and had a 1A tear,” said O’Donnell.
“I thought I was out. Then that I was maybe back in. All this was going on, the emotion was just extraordinarily high during the week and then to get out there and just be able to experience that yesterday.
“It was a 1A tear, the mildest tear you can get. On Tuesday evening I thought I was 100 per cent gone. I went and got an MRI scan on Wednesday at lunch and then found out an hour later it was a 1A and that I had a 50 percent chance of playing, there or thereabouts, depending on how it healed.
“It was just, ah my God, the emotion of thinking I was gone to then having a chance and still not knowing, and waking up every morning and being like...terrible, just extremely (difficult).
“There was no point when I was absolutely definite (about playing). If it wasn’t an All-Ireland final, there would have been no point, but I made the decision a few days ago that regardless, if I survived the warm-up I would play.
“There were a couple of moments, even in the first five minutes I ended up in a situation chasing Shane Barrett and I couldn’t commit to the run because it could have went and it was too early in the game.
“I started calling over Adam (Hogan). It was maybe playing on my mind a small bit earlier in the game. Yeah, it was there, but there was no point where I was like, yeah, I feel great. It was a terrible week.”
O’Donnell explained that he suffered the injury when he got ‘caught in a ruck, was trying to rise a ball...I went down and someone came on to the back of me. I fell to the floor and felt a shock through it’.
The Hurler of the Year favourite said it was a constant concern throughout Sunday’s remarkable one-point win as he feared that ‘each time I sprint for a ball it could be my last’ but he ultimately made it through most of the landmark win.
“We have an unbelievable physio team and I just did what they told me to do,” he said. “The first 48 hours totally nothing, I let it settle, iced it every hour for a solid two days. Saturday morning then I met up with the physio to go for another session. That was it and between Saturday afternoon and the match it was just leave it alone just hope it is where it needs to be.”