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
