Seán O'Donoghue of Cork celebrates after his side's victory in the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Limerick and Cork at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Cork captain, Seán O’Donoghue, feels like he has to right a wrong in Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC Final against Clare.
When the teams met in the group phase of the Round Robin SHC O’Donoghue was red-carded in the second-half for needlessly body-checking Shane O’Donnell off the ball.
The game turned on that moment, as Clare dominated thereafter against the 14 men of Cork, and eventually won by two points.
Watching that defeat unfold from the sideline was a painful experience for the crestfallen O’Donoghue.
“Yeah, to be honest I found it hard to watch it because I knew there was 14 fellas fighting against 15 out there and it was my fault,” he says.
“Rush of blood to the head, didn’t even think about it. Stepped out in front of him and as soon as I hit him I said to myself, ‘What the hell did you do that for?’
“So it was just frustration. I felt I let the team down on the day. I don’t think I had ever gotten a red card before that so getting a red card that day in Championship as captain and I’m meant to be leading the team was tough enough and the few days after it were tough as well, just trying to get back in and trying to get my voice going again.
“I was a bit quiet and stuff for a few days because I felt I had let the boys down but my family and my fiancé and stuff, they’re always there to talk to. Everyone else might think you’re grand but you feel like you let the team down alright.”
Sean O'Donoghue of Cork leaves the field after receiving a second yellow card during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 2 match between Cork and Clare at SuperValu Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile.
In Cork’s subsequent game against Limerick, O’Donoghue endured another couple of difficult moments when his pass was intercepted for by Aaron Gillane for Seamus Flanagan’s first goal of the match, and then he was then dispossessed by Gearóid Hegarty after collecting a short puck-out which led to Flanagan’s second goal of the day.
Had Cork lost that match he would have been in the horrors again, so no-one in the ground was happier than O’Donoghue to see Patrick Horgan stitch that injury-time penalty to win the game.
“Yeah, the fact that I dropped the ball in here as well, and gave them a couple of goals, there was a bit more relief,” he says.
“I was waiting to be walking off after losing by two points, people throwing cups at me or something like that.
“The boys, in fairness, dug me out. I gave a ball away in the first half but, to play the way we’ve to play, some days you’ve to take risks like that. We have to do it in order to play our game plan, so we’re always going to take risks now and again just to try and keep teams honest.
“If you do make mistakes, it’s about not shying away from the next one, making sure that you’re putting yourself in a position and keep trying to be brave, really.”
Developing that mindset hasn’t been an overnight process and there were some growing pains along the way for this Cork hurling team.
The defeat to Waterford in the first round of the Munster SHC was a watershed moment. The players were honest enough to admit they hadn’t lived up to the standards they were demanding of one another, and it was no good talking about good intentions if they weren’t backing them up with actions.
“I think after the Waterford game we just kind of sat down as a group of players and we just kind of looked at what we went out to do and look at what we actually did and you could just see the gaps,” said O’Donoghue.
“We didn’t really own it. We didn’t own the performance that day and you could clearly see that we just weren’t up to it on the day. We weren’t doing things that we were doing in training.
“It just didn’t really happen for us and I think it was just down to a couple of things going wrong in our preparation, in our mentality but I think we took ownership over that.
“It just switched and while we played well against Clare, we still didn’t really peak but we obviously improved an awful lot to come down here (Páirc Uí Chaoimh) and beat Limerick.”
Ciaran Joyce of Cork is shown a black card by referee Michael Kennedy during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 1 match between Waterford and Cork at Walsh Park in Waterford. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile.
Beating a five-in-a-row chasing Limerick twice in the championship is a serious achievement and proves this Cork team is a quality outfit, but it will count for nothing if they don’t also get the better of Clare in Sunday’s Final.
O’Donoghue has huge respect for the quality of this Clare team, but he believes the most important factor going into the game is Cork’s ability to reset mentally after their dramatic semi-final win so they can peak again for the biggest game of all.
“I think they’re fit and they’re fast,” says O’Donoghue of Clare. “They’re quite balanced, to be fair, as teams go. I suppose they’re very similar to ourselves that way.
“We have a mixture of a few big lads, a few wristy lads, a few fast lads but they’ll have confidence in the fact they’ve beaten us the last two or three times we’ve played them in Championship so they’ll definitely be confident heading into it, but we’ll have that same confidence.
“What’s in my head is just making sure that we keep our feet on the ground. We were here in 2021 and it might have gotten to lads’ heads.
“We might have enjoyed the two weeks, all the red flags and everything around the place rather than just kind of enjoying it in training and in the gym and just enjoying it as the group so I think it’s about keeping the feet on the ground now and making sure that we’re just building up to that performance that we know is in us.”