I found out I was playing two hours before throw-in

CLARE's hat-trick hero Shane O'Donnell joked he will return to UCC over the next few days to rub it into the faces of his Cork college mates.

The Éire Óg Ennis teenager, who is in his second year studying genetics, said he didn't intend on skipping too many days of lectures in the coming week: "I might miss one but sure I don’t want to miss too much of rubbing it in their face when I go down to them!"

Davy Fitzgerald revealed he only told O'Donnell he was starting two hours prior to throw-in and the player corroborated the story. "When we were getting food I got brought aside and I didn’t know before that. Davy brought me aside and just said I was starting. I didn’t know before that. I thought it was brilliant, I always wanted to start. But I was a bit surprised alright.

"He just brought me aside and said ‘we decided to start you instead of Darach.’ He just said ‘do what you always do’ and that’s go for goals. Sometimes they don’t work out but today they did."

O'Donnell did, however, dismiss Tony Kelly's claim he was almost getting sick coming off the team bus in Croke Park. "That's not true".

At the same time, he admitted he would be consumed with butterflies in his belly in the run-up to games. Fitzgerald's mind games had worked to a tee.

"I get very nervous before matches. In hindsight it made it easier because I slept great last night and woke up this morning and I was like ‘I am looking forward to my chance to get on'.

"And I was only told close to the game so I wasn’t too nervous or uptight about it, I was just excited to get out. In hindsight, it worked brilliantly."

It was his form behind closed doors in Cusack Park in recent weeks - he scored two goals in the A v B game last Friday week - that earned him his spot.

"The week before the U21 match and from then I have been going well. You just hit a patch of form and I just got it at the right time and I got put on, thank God."

Of his three goals, O'Donnell took most pleasure from his third goal: "I would have to say the third because the other two were absolutely put on a plate for me. I did absolutely nothing only two steps and then put it in the far corner – probably the third one, yeah. But if I was to pick one from the match, Conor McGrath’s topped all mine easily."

It was the stuff of fairytales for O'Donnell who followed in the same vein as another replay bolter, Walter Walsh, last year.

"You literally dream of that, from when you are a kid – going up to the Hill after scoring a goal because there is always a small delay between when it hits the net and when they roar. It is absolutely amazing.

"If I had a dream last night that I was going to score 3-3 I would have woken up going ‘that’s ridiculous, I’d be happy with one'."