Abbeydorney boss Brian O’Donovan: 'Oisin Maunsell with one hand is better than most lads with two'

The forward scored 2-4 in the Kerry SHC final despite playing with a fractured wrist on one hand and a broken thumb on the other

Brian ‘Beano’ O’Donovan took over as the manager of three-in-a-row seeking Abbeydorney this year and did not feel the weight of expectation that came with the job.

“Look, I am proud of the lads. Francie brought us great success for the last two years and, when he stepped away last year, Niall O’Connell and myself decided to take on the mantle ourselves and we brought a few fellows on board that would improve the quality of the group. 

"I asked Damien Gillane (father of Aaron and Jason Gillane) to come in help out with the training and he brought another bit of energy to the group. We knew we had the quality with a little bit of tweaking here and there, and while it was an up and down season in the league, once we got the injured lads back and lads in with Kerry, we felt that we were starting to play as we can.” 

O'Donovan admitted that he was worried early on in their Kerry senior hurling decider as they were not as quick out of the boxes as earlier rounds and St Brendans were scoring early points. 

“Yeah, we are normally quick into our stride but we were slow getting going and we might have been panicking a small bit. 

"But we knew once we got the ball into Oisin Maunsell and Michael Slattery that they would do the business [with] those two quickfire goals and, once the defence settled and we got the ball up to the front men, we just took over.” 

The winning manager was loud in his praise of Oisin Maunsell who scored 2-4 despite playing with a fractured wrist on one hand and a broken thumb on the other. 

“These boys will put on their boots no matter what. I spoke to Oisin during the week and he said he would play. Oisin with one hand is better than most lads with two so we knew he would deliver.” 

Oisin remarked: “I spent the full week in UHK getting scans and I broke my wrist against Ballyduff in the semi. We left the cast off until next week. You never feel pain when you are winning and we will celebrate for the week, so pain is not an option right now. But I will have to go for surgery. So no club football with Na Gaeil unfortunately."