ALL-IRELAND FINAL day experiences as a captain in Croke Park?
Sean O’Donoghue casts his mind back a decade ago to a happy Saturday afternoon.
He led his Coláiste Choilm school team out that day as they won a senior B football title against Dublin opponents Scoil Aodháin.
The future Cork hurling captain was joined in that game by other figures who have populated this summer’s championship.
Longford boss Paddy Christie was in charge of the Glasnevin outfit, their corner-forwards were current Dublin hurler Eoghan O’Donnell and current Dublin footballer Paddy Small. Cork football goalkeeper Chris Kelly was one of O’Donoghue’s team-mates.
“Time just flew by there but that was obviously a huge day and I was (thinking), ‘I wouldn’t mind getting back here again’. I think we went up the other stand that day so hopefully I’ll be up the Hogan Stand the next day.”
Appearing in Sunday’s showdown against Clare is a reward for Cork’s epic semi-final success over Limerick. If it was a daunting task trying to take down the five-in-a-row chasers, Cork had stockpiled enough experience to give them confidence they could challenge the champions.
“I think we showed in the Munster championship, Limerick were on song that day as well but we just had too much for them. I think we did the same (in the semi-final), we showed that we had that resilience and that bit of doggedness just to keep going to the very end.
“The All-Ireland final three years ago was nearly just a write-off. Hard to look at that game and say, ‘We didn’t do this’ or ‘we didn’t do that’. You have to just write those days off unfortunately. I think we’ve beaten Limerick a fair few times in the League and the championship over the past four or five years, so it was something we always knew we had.
“We always felt that Limerick, they did have a bit of fear of us because they know when we do play that we’re a very hard team to stop.”
The emotional high of such a victory was quickly parked for O’Donoghue by events off the pitch. He and his fiancée Aoife became parents to a baby boy last week.
‘She watched it at home,” recalled O’Donoghue of the semi-final win.
“She was buzzing. She’s actually from Limerick, Kilmallock. In fairness, she’s Cork through and through. She’d have the flags on the car; she’d have the jersey.
“Her brother Brian was on the Limerick (U20) panel for a few years. He plays with the Kilmallock senior hurling team as well.”
Juggling a new arrival with preparation for an All-Ireland final makes for a busy week. That sporting prospect looked remote when Cork suffered their second defeat in Munster at the hands of Clare, who they renew acquaintances with on Sunday.
O’Donoghue had to watch the finale of that game from the sideline after being sent-off on a second yellow card.
“I knew there was 14 fellas fighting against 15 out there. It was my fault, rush of blood to the head, didn’t even think about it. Stepped out in front of him (Shane O’Donnell) and as soon as I hit him I said to myself, ‘What the hell did you do that for?’
“So it was just frustration. I felt I let the team down on the day. I don’t think I had ever gotten a red card before that so getting a red card that day in championship as captain and I’m meant to be leading the team was tough enough.
“The few days after it were tough as well, just trying to get back in and trying to get my voice going again. I was a bit quiet and stuff for a few days because I felt I had let the boys down but my family and my fiancée and stuff, they’re always there to talk to. Everyone else might think you’re grand but you feel like you let the team down alright.
“I looked at it the week before when Damien Cahalane got sent off (against Waterford). Like, he might have felt the same but, in my mind, I was like, ‘These things happen.’
“I wouldn’t have blamed him; those things happen in games. But when it’s actually you in that position, you don’t think the other fellas are thinking that … you just feel that you’ve put them under a bit more pressure.”
O’Donoghue’s faith never wavered in the capacity of their team to perform.
“It’s not a shock at all, we knew we had it in the locker, like, it’s just a case of putting the performances out. Took a while to get going in the Munster Championship but we kind of found our bit of form now.
“I think after the Waterford game we just kind of sat down as a group of players and we just kind of looked at what we went out to do and look at what we actually did and you could just see the gaps. We didn’t own the performance that day and you could clearly see that we just weren’t up to it.
“It was just down to a couple of things going wrong in our preparation, in our mentality but I think we took ownership over that.”
That sense of taking responsibility has been on his mind since the Limerick game.
“What’s in my head is just making sure that we keep our feet on the ground. We were here in 2021 and it might have gotten to lads’ heads. We might have enjoyed the two weeks, all the red flags and everything around the place rather than just kind of enjoying it in training and in the gym and just enjoying it as the group.
“It’s about making sure that we’re just building up to that performance that we know is in us. Clare, they’re fit and they’re fast. They’re quite balanced, to be fair, as teams go, they’ll have confidence in the fact they’ve beaten us the last two or three times, but we’ll have that same confidence.”
It’s a quarter of a century since three members of the current Cork management tasted All-Ireland success. O’Donoghue operates at corner-back in a different hurling climate to that which his selector Wayne Sherlock performed in.
“It was different. I was laughing at a clip I saw the other day of Sherlock when he was coming out, I think it was the end of a game against Offaly, but he got the ball on his own ’13 and had plenty of time and he bombed it down on the other side of the field. And I said, ‘You know, if you do that now, you’re getting in trouble!’
“I don’t think it’s any more difficult or any easier. It’s all kind of relative to the opposition, to the time you’re playing. You’re playing a certain game and you have to carry on. Some backs might rather a long ball coming in; some backs might rather teams trying to work it through the lines.
“It’s all individual. But, I suppose, it’s like the old argument of Lebron James or Michael Jordan? They’re completely different times, so it’s hard to put them against each other.”
I always remember Anthony Daly recounting Donal Og Cusack shouting across at him in the pre-match parade in 1999, ‘We are Cork, boy, we are Cork, we have 27 All-Irelands. Ye have only two.’
There’ll be no doubt in the minds of Cork people and players on Sunday as to who’s going to win, especially to right the wrongs of 2013 which many Corkonions are still scratching their heads about.