Stephen McDonnell's favourite match for Cork: win over Clare in 2014 a strong response to All-Ireland loss

· This is an excerpt from Cork Hurling: Game of My Life, which is out this week. Stephen McDonnell is one of 25 former Cork hurlers who choose their favourite game, in this case the 2014 Munster SHC semi-final win over Clare

Our first game in 2014 was a Munster quarter-final against Waterford and we were bad that day, lucky to get a draw. We were probably listening to the talk around the place. The result gave us a bit of a kick – “We can go through this year willy-nilly, just hoping for the best and that kind of stuff or we can do something about it.” We knew we all had to drive it on and, to be fair, we did – we came back and beat Waterford and that set us up well for the semi-final against Clare.

We had actually played Clare five times in 2013 – the two All-Ireland finals, obviously, and there was a Waterford Crystal Cup pre-season game in Sixmilebridge as well as the league relegation play-off and the Munster championship match, both of which were in Limerick. The 2014 match was set for Thurles and there’s a different energy there. Even as a young fella, it was special – with no disrespect intended, you don’t travel to the Gaelic Grounds for the Munster championship, it’s all about Thurles. We used to get a bus from the church in Ballyvolane up to Thurles.

As a player, when you’re going through Liberty Square on the bus to a match, you’re bringing all of those memories back and there’s a different vibe. We buzzed off that and Cork teams have always enjoyed going into that environment. It brought a little bit more pressure and we fed off it – you can either rise up or sink down in those situations and we rose up.

For 2014, I was put marking Conor McGrath, who had done the most damage of any forward in the All-Ireland final. He had got a goal and, any time he got the ball, it would bring a roar of anticipation from the crowd. I was put on him to do a job, so I was delighted with that. I had an idea it might happen but I usually wouldn’t find out until the last session before the match – I’d go over to the management after training and ask what the plan was for the full-back but I didn’t do that for the Clare game, I knew they were thinking on it and there were a few different forwards to plan for.

It wasn’t until we stopped off at Dundrum on the way up that Kieran Kingston – who was coach at the time – brought me into one of the rooms and said, “You’re going to pick up McGrath and he’s not going to touch a ball!” Basically, that was the instruction – the pressure was on but I was delighted with it.

It was nice to win the first ball but you wouldn’t place too much significance on it, either – sometimes, the attacker might win it and do something with it and you just had to accept that things like that would happen. I never let that get the better of me – you wouldn’t last long in the full-back line if it was bothering you.

We were always that bit better than Clare on the day and it was a great one for us to win. Clare had beaten us over the two games in 2013 so you’d question the ability of the team and how you stack up against the All-Ireland champions is how you measure how good you are. When we beat them, it reiterated that we were on the right track and we needed to keep going. After beating the All-Ireland champions, we were very confident going into the Limerick game.

· Cork Hurling: Game of My Life by Denis Hurley, is published by Hero Books (€20)