'I was tempted' - O'Donnell eyeing championship action but says retirement was on cards after injury

The Clare forward is fighting to get back to see game time this summer.

Shane O’Donnell of Clare with Logan Clifford Hegarty, aged 6, at Croke Park in Dublin. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

For the briefest of whiles at the start of the year, after learning he would require shoulder surgery and a six-month recuperation, retirement and the possibility of bowing out on a high 'tempted' Shane O'Donnell.

The reigning Hurler of the Year and All-Star didn't allow those thoughts to linger for too long, however, and despite initially being ruled out for the entire season, has revealed he could yet feature in this year's Championship.

The very best case scenario is that O'Donnell could be back in as little as four weeks, leaving him right in the mix for Munster SHC activity with Clare.

The Ennis man said that it could be as long as eight weeks either, pretty much bringing us to the date of the Munster final.

Further clarity is expected by the end of April when he consults physios but the big takeaway is that the two-time All-Ireland winner is a real live contender to experience Championship action.

That's a giant bonus for a Clare side fresh off National League relegation and desperate not just to retain the MacCarthy Cup but to fight for a first Munster title since 1998.

It's certainly a brighter picture than early January when O'Donnell was told that a labrum tear in his right shoulder would need to be operated on.

"Yeah, I was tempted," said O'Donnell when asked if he considered cutting his losses and retiring at that point. "If I'd done my ACL, that would have been different, where there was absolutely no chance of playing (in 2025), where the club was ruled out, everything was ruled out.

"Then I'd be like, 'You know what, I plan to go away, maybe that's the end of my career'. 

"But when the recovery schedule kind of landed me into the middle of the summer, and I had the club campaign, and we still haven't won a championship in Clare with the club, it would just be unfair to be like, 'Well, I can't play for Clare so I'm not going to play with ye and I'm gone'.

"That would be a little bit...I feel like that wouldn't be a fair kind of end to everything the club has given me. So that was kind of what I was thinking at the time. So it (retirement) probably wasn't on my mind.

"I wasn't going to down tools and just forget about it. Also, there is great access to physios and stuff like that and really excellent medical facilities when you're involved with Clare. So taking advantage of that allows me to get back faster as well. So I do get a lot out of it."

O'Donnell suffered the injury in last July's All-Ireland final defeat of Cork. His buildup to that game was interrupted by a hamstring injury though the shoulder injury he picked up in the game itself turned out to be much more severe. He let it settle and played for his club afterwards but aggravated it in a training session and was informed of a labrum tear by specialists, requiring surgical intervention.

The bigger picture for O'Donnell is that he'd already indicated this would probably be his last season with Clare before possibly relocating to America for work. The PhD graduate said that plan hasn't necessarily changed though it's not set in stone either.

"To be honest, the whole (political) situation in America potentially alters the plan more than this does, I don't really know if that's something I want to throw myself into, but that's maybe outside of hurling really," said the 31-year-old.

"But the plan is still to go to America, or to go abroad. This was kind of what I was eyeing up for my last year, but it's kind of harder to say that now because it's going to be a very truncated year, if it's a year at all, so I'm not going to nail myself down and say it absolutely is or is not my last year.

"Also, I think I got given out to last year for continually saying, 'Oh this is my last year' and then I played another year, so maybe I should be a little bit more vague on it. But that is the mean case that yeah, this is my last year and I kind of go to America and we live abroad for a while."

O'Donnell will be a jittery spectator this Sunday when Clare host Cork in Ennis.

"That is what you play hurling for, and to be looking at that from the sidelines, that's been really difficult," he said of bystanding. "And that's where it's been like, 'No, fuck it, I need to (play again), I need to get back into contention."