EOGHAN O’DONNELL HAS grabbed the opportunity to ‘set the record straight’ and to clarify that he never left the Dublin hurling panel.
The Sky Blues captain said that he was as surprised as anyone to receive a mid-season invitation to join up with Dessie Farrell’s football panel, after the hurlers had exited the Championship.
He jumped at the opportunity and explained to Farrell that it would only be a short-term arrangement until the end of the football season.
O’Donnell said Farrell didn’t attempt to lure the versatile defender, who came on as a sub in the All-Ireland quarter-final win over Cork, back for 2023 because he understood that the Whitehall Colmcille man was committed to hurling.
“The decision was made when I got the football call up in the first place that it was only going to be for the remainder of the season,” said O’Donnell, renowned as one of the best full-backs in hurling.
“I was always going to be hurling next year so it is nice to set the record straight that I never left Dublin.
“The hurling year was finished early unfortunately and I took the opportunity with both hands. I think it was a great opportunity to face a new challenge and to learn from a team that has been on the road for a long time.
“You pick up a massive amount and it is funny in one way that they don’t do a massive amount differently to other teams, our dressing-room with the hurlers would be very similar in terms of our approach to games or tactics or analysis.
“It is really that they have been on the road a long time and they have gotten very good at their analysis and their preparation for games and they have some really top class individuals there that know how to win, so it was great to learn from them and to see how they operate because they are probably some of the best players to have played the game and it was a privilege to see how they operate.”
O’Donnell, speaking at the launch of Dublin GAA’s AIG sponsored jersey for 2023, admitted that while fans were shocked at the mid-summer switch, it caught him on the hop too.
“It was completely out of the blue,” he said. “I was more surprised by the timing of it, I never thought it was a possibility. But it was the first year of the split season and the hurling didn’t finish up as we would have liked, we obviously wanted to be hurling for the summer. So the year still had a small bit of legs in it and the timing just worked out moreso than in other years.”
Even for one of hurling’s most accomplished inter-county players, it was a tough transition though.
“Where the difficulty lay was in the minute details of it,” he said. “I thought my football skills were okay, my athleticism was okay and as a player you will back yourself going into a competitive environment like that.
“I play full-forward with my club in football and was playing more of a central position in the half-back line with Dublin, or in and around that area, so I was learning a new position for the first time. It was really the tactics side of things, handing a man off, when to run and when not to run and when to hold position.
“And really the learning curve for me was even though they are both games in the GAA, they are completely different sports really, the tactics, the systems, it is a completely different game.”
Football boss Farrell, who has lured Jack McCaffrey and Paul Mannion back into the fold, and Pat Gilroy as a coach, didn’t make any attempt to hold onto O’Donnell for 2023.
“I was very straight with my intention from the start, that I was coming in for a short period of time to add whatever value I could add,” he explained. “I was there to learn and to see what I could get from it as well, so we were both on the same page from the start on that and it wasn’t really a question that came up at the end of the year.”
O’Donnell, by choosing to stick with the hurlers, has bucked the trend within Dublin of dual players choosing the more glamorous football panel over hurling.
“I suppose I was adamant in my decision because I wouldn’t just leave at the drop of a hat like that,” he explained. “I’ve put a massive amount of my life and my time into Dublin hurling over the last nine or 10 years and we all believe so strongly in what we are doing there.”
As for the future though, O’Donnell didn’t rule out potentially returning to the football setup at some stage.
“Yeah, maybe, the very honest answer is, I don’t know,” he said. “I have just turned 27, I have quite an intense career. I want to travel. I want to do everything to be honest! You can only plan for one year at a time. For this year, my full commitment is Dublin hurling and I’m really looking forward to getting involved again and with the new manager coming in. I think this is a really good opportunity for us.”
