SHANE O’DONNELL HAS revealed how being involved a ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ themed fundraiser contributed to the injury problems that plagued his Clare senior hurling campaign in 2014.
The fundraising event took place last April involving the Clare hurlers and camogie players. O’Donnell was one of the participants who underwent the dance training beforehand but a few days before the show, he was struck down after pulling his hamstring.
That was the beginning of a luckless run that prevented O’Donnell from featuring in any of Clare’s three senior championship outings this summer.
“My hamstring went the first time when I was doing ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. I was doing training that I wasn’t used to and I strained the hamstring. That was the start of the injuries and everything began to fall by the wayside.
“It was extremely frustrating. Watching on for every match was very difficult. It made for a long summer.”
O’Donnell recovered to play for the Clare U21 hurlers in their Munster final win over Cork in July but while he netted in the first-half, the Éire Óg club man also fractured his hand.
O’Donnell was forced off through injury but did recover in time for last month’s landslide All-Ireland semi-final win over Antrim and is now getting set for Saturday’s Bord Gáis Energy All-Ireland U21 hurling final.
“The break in the hand took a while to get 100% but I’m set to go now. It’s a massive occasion on Saturday and it’ll be a fantastic battle against Wexford. I’m really looking forward to it.”
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Shane O’ Donnell is a Lenovo Ambassador. Lenovo is proud partner of the GAA/GPA and is offering special Back to School/College discounts to all GAA members at www.lenovo.com/gaa
There’s third world country’s that have better stadiums than we have … (outside Dublin) .. disgrace
@John McK: quantity over quality
@John McK: just because you say it doesn’t make it true. There’s no third world countries with similar populations that have a stadium like Semple Stadium in a town of the size of Thurles.
It’s hard to think that €10 m on Semple would be anything other than a cosmetic patch up. And the stadium is still in Thurles!! On the other hand, the same amount spent on rebuilding the Mackie stand in Limerick would leave Munster with two stadia capable of hosting finals and other major events in cities with decent connections.
They could spend 10m bulldozing the whole town, kip.
Having been at the Munster hurling final last year, I thought the toilets in the Kinnane stand were the most shambolic crush I have ever experienced. Tiny toilet, huge stand and lots of people absolutely wasted. A recipe for disaster.