Seán O'Donoghue: ‘This year we never really had a fear of Limerick’
INNISCARRA'S FINEST: Cork skipper Seán O'Donoghue Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Tom Maher
On Leeside they’ve missed Liam MacCarthy a lot. Mar is fada an turas é ó 1990 go 1999 agus níos faide arís an turas ó 2005 go 2024.
When they do win All Irelands though, it’s not just anyone who accepts the cup . And they tend to say something more memorable than a cúpla focail.
Look at their last five captains to have had the honour. Tom Cashman, that classiest of hurlers and men, unable to resist having a word for his later friend, the Lord Mayor of Galway. Tomás Mulcahy, after turning around an All-Ireland final as much as any one player has, hinting that himself and Larry Tompkins would soon be playfully swapping trophies on the South Mall: “We’ll be back here in a fortnight’s time to complete the Double!”
Mark Landers defiantly in the rain dispelling any notions that Cork couldn’t win in it while punching his county’s long-lost son in the air. Ben O’Connor, just six months after winning with the club, hoisting another All-Ireland above his head. And then lastly Seán Óg going fully as Gaeilge.
It is in their steps, by going up the steps, that Seán O’Donoghue is looking to follow this Sunday.
Unlike all of the aforementioned he is not yet a household name, even in his own county.
Back when Cork were winning hurling All-Irelands, health and safety wasn’t a huge consideration: just as supporters were allowed to flood onto the pitch to celebrate, players could waive on the use of a helmet, a liberty most Cork captains availed of.
O’Donoghue is of a generation of hurler that has known nothing else but to wear one and its accompanying faceguard which has affected how well or little the public knows that generation.
He also plays corner back, a position where no one has previously captained Cork to an All-Ireland from; with the exception of Martin O’Doherty, who wore No.3 going up to lift Liam McCarthy number 23 for the county in 1977, every All-Ireland-winning Cork captain played either in goals or from the halfback line up. In the corner it’s more of a virtue than a flaw to go unmentioned, unnoticed. O’Donoghue’s game and nature is in keeping with that desired low profile: solid and steady to go with being speedy and steely.
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When Cork played Clare back in late April though he departed from that. After making the outstanding defensive play of the game, diving full-length midway through the second half to block Mark Rodgers scoring a certain goal and breaking his own hurley in the process, O’Donoghue instantly proceeded to make the dumbest play of his career.
It wouldn’t have been that big a deal if he hadn’t already been on a yellow card when he stepped into Shane O’Donnell’s path as the Clare man dashed towards where the ball had broken. But he already was on a yellow card. Which meant the first red card of his career and Cork for a second consecutive week having to finish a championship game with 14 men.
“As soon as I hit him, I said to myself, ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Complete rush of blood to the head. Didn’t even think about what I was doing.
“I found it hard to watch the rest of that game. Because I knew it was 14 fellas fighting against 15 out there and that it was my fault: to get a red card, in championship, as captain and supposed to be leading the team. I felt that I had let the team down.
“The few days after it were tough as well.” He was unusually quiet and sheepish around the group. How could he talk the talk when he’d walked that walk? An empathy he had innately extended to Damian Cahalane the previous week was one he felt others would understandably withhold from him.
“When Damien got sent off, he might have felt the same then as I did [after the Clare game] but in my mind I wouldn’t have been blaming him. No one was on the pitch saying, ‘Damo, what did you do that for?’ You were just saying, ‘Those things happen.’ But when it’s actually you in that position, you don’t think that the other fellas are thinking that.
“So I was low enough for a few days. We came into the gym and had training and I was quiet around the place.” It was picked up on, prompting Pat Ryan to pick up the phone and pick him up: Just keep the head up and keep speaking up – you’re our captain.
“My family and fiancée [Aoife] were also there to talk to. Those are the times that you’re happy to have the people around you being around you.” By the following game against Limerick, O’Donoghue was back to himself. Vocal. Playing out in front. Making himself available for ball, distributing it diligently, all the while knowing that carried the possibility of something going wrong again.
Something did. Although he set up numerous scores for Cork and interrupted multiple Limerick attacks, he also coughed up two turnovers that led to two Seamus Flanagan goals. The crisis of then is the joke of today; he self-depreciatingly laughs that if Cork had lost he’d have been half-expecting some Southgate-like treatment and for “people to be throwing paper cups at me”.
What mattered was that night he had no doubts about still having the trust of his teammates and the management – and such trust was mutual.
“The boys in fairness dug me out. And look, yeah, I gave the ball away, but when we play the way we play, you’ve to take risks like that now and again, just to keep teams and their full forward line honest. And the lads would have known that although I did give away a couple of balls, there were other balls that I won and that I gave good ball in to others.
“It’s more about if you do make a mistake, not to be shying away from the next (ball). Making sure you put yourself into a position to keep being brave.” O’Donoghue has rarely shirked anything, especially hard work. He is built like a tank, testament to the work he put in the gym that he and his father installed in his house during Covid so he could make full use of all that time away from the group. Inniscarra clubmates have seen him on Christmas Day up at the ball wall in Ballyanly.
“I love the grind,” he admits. “You’re nearly in a competition with yourself to get that bit fitter, that bit faster, that bit stronger. I think you have to attack every part of your game. You can’t just do your hurling and that’s it. You have to improve on your physicality, touch, mentality, everything.”
He’s particularly gone after the mind game; a cloud programme manager during the day for the multi-national data firm Cloudera, he enjoys taking a cerebral approach to the game, availing of Gary Keegan’s expertise on a one-to-one basis and endorsing its importance to the collective. Keegan was in South Africa with the men’s national rugby team the week either side of the All Ireland semi-final but still had an impact, being available for one-to-ones and doing a group session by remote as well.
For O’Donoghue though, Keegan’s most vital intervention was considerably earlier in the championship.
“He was a big part of our turnaround after the Waterford game. We knew that we hadn’t gotten the best out of ourselves [in Walsh Park] and do what we had intended to do. But we had a meeting with Gary that helped us turn a corner and fellas took a bit more ownership after that. Stuff like owning your preparation, making sure you have all your stuff right, like eating the right food.
“Then on the pitch it’s about showing your honesty, like showing for the ball. If we want to play a certain way, we’ve to make sure we’re 100 percent committed to that. I don’t think we did that against Waterford and it affected us.”
O’Donoghue already has experience of lifting All-Irelands from the steps of the Hogan Stand. Ten years ago he captained his school, Coláiste Choilm, Ballincollig, to an All Ireland B football title. Later that year he played minor for Cork in both codes. If anything at the time he was considered a better footballer. In 2016 he was Cork’s freetaker and full forward in the manic six-goal U21 All Ireland final against Mayo. The following year he captained the team.
Hurling and the hurlers though always had a grip on him and wouldn’t let go. As early as 2015 Jimmy Barry-Murphy called him up to play in a Waterford Crystal game, though he’d have to wait a further three years until he was out of U21 to make his league and senior championship debut.
By then he was a corner back. All his underage hurling with the county had been either in midfield or the halfback line and to this day he plays somewhere in the middle eight for his club; when Inniscarra won the county premier intermediate title in 2022, O’Donoghue scored 3-10 over the campaign. But John Meyler had noted that when UCC’s regular full back, Kevin Daly from Waterford, did his cruciate, it was O’Donoghue, their captain, that filled that void for them.
That readiness to do whatever is best for the team is a quality O’Donoghue now feels is pervasive across the Cork panel. Ask him that if Cork were to get over the line what differentiates the group of 2024 from others and he answers, “I think it’s the willingness to do it for the team, everyone having that team-player mentality. It’s not about All Stars or anything like that. It’s just about getting the team over the line.
“I don’t know if it’s more than before or why it’s more than before. I suppose a lot it comes from training games. Every player that you’re marking is tough to mark. There’s huge competition for places, from one to 38. That builds camaraderie. We’ve grown stronger as a team and everyone is now putting in more of a shift for each other.”
O’Donoghue personifies and radiates the values that Keegan helped identify and hone as central to the Dublin football project and which presumably he’s highlighted to the Cork hurling project too. That commitment to a higher purpose. Continuous improvement. And humility.
Ger Murphy in Inniscarra has told The Southern Star about how O’Donoghue will go up to the club field in Ballyanley and fall in with a couple of youngsters pucking around, creating memories. If asked to take a section of the minors’ training, he will, no bother.
In one huddle at the Cork media night O’Donoghue name-checked club volunteers who cultivated his love of Gaelic Games – Dave Collins, Jack O’Mahony, Eugene ‘Spatch’ O’Sullivan – and his regard for the club’s 2022 championship match-winner Colm Casey, while being conscious that many others held the ladder up too: he’ll take a bit of all of them onto that field on Sunday.
But that humility is married to a lot of confidence and ambition. As understated as O’Donoghue is, some of his comments at the media night gave an indication of the belief Cork entered the All Ireland semi-final with.
“To beat anyone twice in the one championship is a hard feat, so to beat the All-Ireland champions twice is even bigger again. But this year we never really had a fear of Limerick. And we always felt that Limerick had a bit of fear of us. We knew the team that they are but we just got to a point this year believing that if we performed to our level, they wouldn’t beat us.”
Now they’re just one game away. O’Donoghue is well aware of how long it has been since Cork last won the big one, what it would mean to win this one, and the all fine players that didn’t get to go up those steps. Asked what Cork player he particularly admired growing up and modelled himself somewhat on, he instantly mentions Shane O’Neill from Bishopstown, an Inbetweener, before having a word about the more celebrated and decorated halfback line of Gardiner, Curran and Ó hAilpín.
There’s another figure from his childhood ingrained in his mind and whose example he also wants to follow. Ahead of that 2014 All-Ireland schools B football final with Coláiste Choilm, O’Donoghue, in what must have been his first media interview, spoke about watching the 2010 All-Ireland football final.
“I can remember the picture of Graham Canty holding it [the cup] up. Just to do that would be a dream come true.”
His house has already welcomed a new arrival in recent days. Last Thursday Aoife had a baby boy. There’ll still be plenty of room for Liam MacCarthy though.
Mar is fada an túras é ó Seán Óg go Seán O’.
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