By John Harrington

The 2013 All-Ireland SHC Final replay between Clare and Cork was one of the greatest spectacles that Croke Park has ever hosted.

The Banner County eventually won on a scoreline of 5-16 to 3-16 after a match of scarcely believable drama.

Clare captain on the day, Pat Donnellan, takes a trip down memory lane to give a very revealing insight on Clare's preparations for the match and how it all unfolded on the day.

Q: I presume the 2013 All-Ireland Final replay was the happiest day you've spent on a hurling pitch?

Pat Donellan: Yes, absolutely it was. It was literally my dream growing up. I was 10 in 1995 and 12 in 1997 so I was growing up as a child in primary school when that Clare team was visiting the school, the likes of Anthony Daly and Seanie McMahon. My own club-mate, PJ 'Fingers' O'Connell was on the team at centre-forward all those years and I would have played club hurling with him.

So I literally grew up with my heroes in touching distance and those days were brilliant when the Cups were coming to the school. So to be able to relive that in person and being captain was brilliant for me and my club. It was like those childhood experiences coming around full circle and being able to experience them on the far side was brilliant for my family, the club, and the county. It was just brilliant, absolutely brilliant. It's hard to put into words. Just a boyhood dream come through.

Q: I'd like to chat briefly about the drawn game first. Clare had probably played the best hurling in that match but ultimately needed a last gasp point to level it. What were the emotions in the Clare dressing-room afterwards? Was your glass half-full?

PD: The classic thing of replays is that you're always trying to figure out which team has the psychological upper hand after the drawn match. We felt like we had it, even though if you were very critical and looked back at the game you would almost say we nearly threw it away. But the way it finished, getting the draw with time up essentially, we almost felt that we had the momentum going into the second game. I think that helped, to be honest. It brought the focus away from being disappointed on not following through on the performance the first day.

The focus for the next couple of weeks was moreso about repeating a high level of performance and when we had a period of dominance to capitalise on it a bit more. It seemed a bit easier for us, to be honest, to focus the attention and put a bit of structure on it. There was less emphasis on how did we throw it away or anything like that. We came away with a pep in our step and I think that helped us. I'd been playing hurling for Clare since 2006 and I didn't have many big days, so, on a really, really basic level, we were saying we've two All-Ireland Finals to play in the space of a month so lets enjoy that for its worth.

We know we played well the first day and if we play as well the second day we'll have a very good chance. That's the way we approached it and it all worked out anyway.

Q: Davy Fitzgerald said after the match that the panel had played a training game the previous weekend before the replay and were absolutely flying. So much so that he blew it up early to ensure ye didn't peak too soon. Was that the case?

PD: Yeah, it was. We had worked on a couple of things. We had worked on trying to break Cork down through the centre. Because after the first day we had seen they were going man for man and were more worried about us trying to create space. Going man to man in defence means that the defence is going to be open a bit more than usual because they weren't dropping the midfielders back because they were conscious of leaving the likes of Tony Kelly in space around the middle.

So we had been working on that for the couple of weeks after the drawn game. We were saying, 'Look, if anyone gets a chance through the middle, or if there's a ball to be hit from the backs bring it up the middle, because there's a chance it will break there because there won't be a covering defender'.

Those things seemed to come off in that training game a week before and I think that Davy was conscious that he wanted us to keep something in the tank. He didnt want us to be leaving it on the training field a week out from the match. He was trying to time it right and keep the big performance in the bottle for the match as much as he could.

A few things did work really well for us in that training game and I remember him blowing it up. It gave us good confidence, to be honest, that the things we had been working on previously were still working and the things we'd tried to tweak a bit were also coming off, albeit in a training match. You can tell in training matches if the tempo is good and lads are tuned in. Again, it was just another positive sign that we were on the right track and just needed a bit of luck on the day and a few things to go our way.

Q: You mentioned attacking Cork down the middle. You certainly did when you set up Shane O'Donnell for the first goal of the match by solo-running from deep inside your own half to deep inside Cork's. Your run and the goal that came off it really set the tone for Clare that day. What are your memories of that moment?

PD: We had worked on it. You work on loads of things during training before games, different tactical things, puck-outs, defensive set-ups, loads of things, and a lot of times they don't work out becuase the other team counter-acts it straight away or moves a man. But those few things that we had worked on with Fitzy in the couple of weeks before the replay, trying to open up the defence, expose it and get a few more goals, they worked well in the game.

I had actually done something similiar before that but I didn't go all the way in, I went as far as the '45 and hand-passed it off to John Conlon. When those things are working it just gives you a good confidence that, look, we worked on this, this is happening, we're here again and playing well. You just have a real confidence in yourself to keep doing what you're doing. It doesn't mean you're going to win, but it means your performance will be there, hopefully.

I just kept going with it, and, to be fair, it was still a very hard goal for Sods (O'Donnell), but he's a top-class finisher, so no fear of him.

Q: Shane O'Donnell had an incredible match, scoring 3-3. He'd been a late change to the team that Clare had named for the Final replay, and it was subsequently said he'd been on fire in training coming up to the match. He brought a new dimension to the Clare team for the replay, didn't he? Purely because of the unique sort of player he is.

PD: Yeah, he did, to be honest. Yeah, he'd been going well in training. He was a young lad, very young at the time, only just brought onto the panel in February that year. He was going well, but obviously he was young, and from the management's point of view they were trying to manage that as best as possible and that the time would be right when you put him in. The time of the year, the opposition, the person, the position, everything, you had to make sure the time was right. Because if you throw him in at the wrong time then it can be damaging almost for a young player if it doesn't go well.

But, look, Shane was very confident. He was just a top, top-class finisher. It's hard to even explain it at times because when you'd see him at training he'd look so laid-back but the ball just sticks to him and he's one of those players who just creates danger the minute he gets on the ball regardless of where it is.

He'd been going really well in training, so even though he wasn't named in the team most of us, to be honest, kind of knew he was going to start even though Fitzy hadn't told us. He left it late to tell Shane to keep the pressure off him that day. Look, he just had an unbelievable day. One of those things that you just couldn't have predicted no matter how much you had planned for it. Sometimes you just have one of those dream days and he was brilliant for us that day. The three goals really gave us the cushion that we didn't have the first day and gave us that bit of breathing space.

Q: O'Donnell scored a second goal but then Cork came back into the game when Anthony Nash scored what had become a trademark goal by driving a free to the back of the net. His style of free-taking was banned eventually, what was it like to face them at the time?

PD: It was weird, I suppose. I was usually one of the outfield players who go into goals for penalties with Clare and my club and you'd come up against people who were excellent strikers of the ball or had unbelievable power but you still felt you had some bit of a chance of saving it.

But, with Nash, the only thing you could hope for when he was hitting it was that it would actually hit off you because you had no chance whatsoever of moving your hurley in time to actually save the ball if it went outside of your body. We had worked on filling the goals and getting a goalkeeper's hurley each. You can see from the pictures that we had 10 or 12 players on the line with hurleys but nobody even touched the ball going in. Even if you had touched it, it would still probably have gone in, you'd need to be getting a full hurley on it.

He just had it absolutely perfected and nobody has been able to do it since. I know they've changed the rules, but even at the time people were trying to do it in club games and nobody was able to do it like Nash was. It just took an incredible amount of skill to be able to do it. To throw the ball up 20 yards ahead of you, meet it, and still have a degree of accuracy. I don't think he really knew exactly where he was going to put it, but he was still able to put it into the space from body-height upwards where he knew it would have less of a chance of hitting people.

It was just another one of things things with that match. It was a roller-coaster. The game just seemed to take a life of its own when he got that. The fact that people wouldn't have expected all of us to go back into the goal for it, I think it all just added to the drama of the day. There was just sense of uncertainty, no-one knew what could happen next. It made for a great occasion, I suppose.

Q: You could see that sense of disbelief on the faces of Clare supporters when Shane O'Donnell scored his third goal in the first-half, as if they were thinking, 'is this actually happening in an All-Ireland Final?!' When he got that third goal, what were you thinking on the pitch? What were the emotions like at that stage?

PD: The emotions swayed back and forth a lot through the game. Half the time you were trying to get out of your own head and stop watching the scoreboard and the clock. It's weird the things that will go through your head. When Shane got the few goals you're thinking, right, three goals got, but then a negative thought could come into your head and you might think, 'Oh God, what if we don't keep scoring now. We're sitting on this lead and we could be under pressure for the rest of the day'.

You focused on things we had practiced. Get the score-board out of your head, focus on the next ball, next ball, next ball. Just get a hook in, get a block in, win a free, and just keep ticking over. You had to avoid getting ahead of yourself and trying to win the game in the first half.

The one thing that you would have taken a sense of confidence from on the field was that sometimes in games you'll get a goal against the run of play, but we were playing well that day and we made the goals with a really specific purpose. You'd get a sense of confidence from that. Look, everything we're doing is what we practiced, it's coming right, we're playing well, and we're seeing the fruits of that. It gives you great confidence and you just try to build on it then by keeping the scoreboard ticking over. And you're thinking, just get every ball you can into Shane because he's just on fire.

Q: In fairness to Cork they got four points in a row just before half-time to close the gap to four points. Then they drew level with around 12 minutes to play when Seamus Harnedy scored a goal. But Clare didn't seem to panic. Is that because you always felt if you could get the ball into your forwards there were scores to be had?

PD: Yeah, we were. The time passes quickly and you're not reflecting on a huge amount. But you could see that Cork were coming back and then they drew level. I don't think it was because we were playing very bad, though, or that they were so dominant. I think we had made a few mistakes and got away from what we were doing.

There were times guys went on runs and got blocked or ran into blind-alleys. Then Davy Mac (David McInerney) and Bugs (Brendan Bugler) came out with two balls just after that period where Cork had come back into the game and that just settled everyone down.

On an average day the game will ebb and flow anyway. This was an All-Ireland Final with more tension, but you just need to stick to the plan. And, when you're under pressure, you minimise the damage as much as you can and come out the far side.

Q: Conor McGrath's goal felt like a really big moment at the time because Cork had done so well to come back. So for Clare to not just only get a goal at that time, but a really spectacular one, it felt like it was worth more than just three points.

PD: Yeah, it did, it really did. When you see another goal like that coming from good play...Cian Dillon came out with the ball and hit it in and there was a bit of a fight for the ball and then McGrath just broke onto it. Yeah, when you see a guy going through like that and just absolutely nailing it into the top corner, it does lift you more than a scrappy goal.

The there were a couple of big points, one from Sods and one from John Conlon. You could feel the energy turning back towards you on the day when a score like that goes in. We'd have seen Conor McGrath score goals like that a lot in training, to be honest, he's an unbelievable finisher.

With players like McGrath, Shane O'Donnell, and Darach when he came on, we had real threats around the goal that really gave us a bit of confidence.

Q: Stephen Moylan scored a goal for Cork in injury-time to reduce the gap to three points and then there was one last goalmouth scramble in the Clare square before the ball was cleared down the field to Darach Honan who scored a dramatic fifth goal to clinch the win once and for all. What did it feel like when the final whistle finally blew?

PD: On a day like that, normally if someone gets relatively close to your goal you're pulling them down just outside the 21, because you're thinking if they go for goal from the free they won't have much of a chance. The problem was with Nash was that if you gave a free away anywhere around there he could have a rattle off it. It was unusual in that way.

The game had just taken on a life of its own. Trying to analyse it in detail, you'd just tie yourself up in knots. Maybe it was just that you had two young teams who hadn't been there in years and so were in uncharted territory playing two finals quickly after each other. You were probably always going to get those bolts from the blue and things like that happening that wouldn't normally be in the script.

Q: The floodlights were on by the end and that seemed to add to the atmosphere after the game was over and there were great scenes of celebration in front of Hill 16. That must have been some buzz?

PD: It was. I always loved playing under lights. We never got the opportunity to do it too much. We got a bit of it in the League down in Thurles and maybe in Cork. The odd day in Croke Park. I always loved playing under lights. Even if there's only 200 people at a game on a Friday night that's played under lights it seems way better than a game played in front of 200 people on a Sunday morning.

Playing under lights is a novelty and it definitely did add another element to that All-Ireland Final. You've the drawn game, all the goals and drama, and then the floodlights on at the end, it was all things that hadn't happened before. It really gave a sense of novelty.

Q: What was it like to lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup as Clare captain? That moment will surely live in your mind's eye for the rest of your life?

PD: Yeah it will, absolutely. It's hard to talk about it without talking in cliches. I literally would have grown up watching those teams, those old videos of the homecoming. I would have been on the field in Croke Park the days Clare won the two All-Irelands when Anthony Daly was captain and I wanted to be Seanie McMahon when I was growing up.

To have a chance to be Clare captain first of all was a huge honour. But being lucky enough to be able to be captain on the day you get to an All-ireland and win it, the odds are miniscule for a county like Clare that isn't there every year or every second year and has only won a handful. It was just something unbelievable. I'll never forget that feeling of standing on the steps looking out to people before the President handed over the Cup. It's something I'll always treasure and have for myself.

And to win it with that group, we were really close, was a real honour. To get that opportunity to represent my club, county, family and all of those players as Clare captain was something I'll cherish until the day I die.