Cork v Westmeath: Bishopstown's Paul O'Donoghue in the maroon corner on Sunday

GROWING up in Bishopstown, Paul O’Donoghue was used to cheering on maroon and white in games in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. That’s still the case – but he never thought that he’d be involved with a maroon team opposing Cork there.

On Sunday, Westmeath visit for an Allianz Hurling League Division 1 Group A game (1.45pm) and O’Donoghue is a coach for the Lake County, working under manager Joe Fortune.

After graduating from UCC, the now-36-year-old O’Donoghue undertook a post-graduate degree in teaching in UCD and has remained in Dublin ever since.

O’Donoghue had been part of a star-studded Bishopstown under-age team, managed by his father Pádraig, that won two county minor and two county U21 titles, as well as helping the club to attain senior status by winning the PIHC in 2006. He continued to commute to play for them until he was forced to retire prematurely due to injury.

However, he availed of an opportunity to move into coaching and has made good progress since.

“I ruptured my ACL about six years ago,” he says.

“It was a nasty enough one and it put me out for a while, I’m still having a few issues with it.

“That same year, I started coaching with the Dublin senior camogie team – Shane O’Brien, the current Dublin hurling selector, was the manager and I knew him through being involved with school teams.

“He asked me to be part of it and I was involved with them for a couple of years and that was the start.”

From there, O’Donoghue managed Maynooth University’s camogie team to win the second-tier Purcell Cup, winning promotion to the Ashbourne Cup for the first time and then he coached Lucan Sarsfields’ hurlers for four years.

“I’ve been lucky to be around good teams and good groups of players,” he says.

“We won the U21A county in my first year with Lucan and then, last year we won the league, which was the first senior title in their history. We got to two championship semi-finals in that time, too.”

PROFESSIONAL

During O’Donoghue’s involvement with Lucan, he came into contact with Ballyboden St Enda’s boss Fortune and, when the latter took up the Westmeath posting, he invited the Bishopstown man to join him.

“I would have dialogue and contact with Joe when we came up against them and that grew,” he says.

“Peter Kelly, the ex-All-Star with Dublin and current Westmeath selector, was playing with Lucan for two years that I was coaching and he would have played under Joe with Dublin minor and U21 teams and worked with Joe with Dublin U21s.

“He would have been able to give a reference – well, I’m assuming that’s the case, anyway! Joe has high standards and has put a very professional setup in place.

“Last year was our first year and we couldn’t have hoped for a better year.

“We had three aims at the start of the year – win the Kehoe Cup, win Division 2A of the league and then retain our status in the Leinster championship. Thankfully, the year went well and we achieved all three aims. We drew with Wexford before beating Laois to retain our status in the Leinster championship so we were delighted with how the year went.

“This year, Westmeath are playing in the Leinster senior championship and Division 1A for the first time in their history.”

That’s no small achievement, given that Westmeath has six senior hurling clubs. While they have started the league with losses to Clare and Wexford and will be heavy outsiders on Sunday, there’s little doubting that they are punching above their weight in the grander scheme of things.

NO EASY GAMES

While O’Donoghue – whose grandfather Paddy and father Pádraig have both served as chairpersons of Bishopstown – still tries to get down to the club when he’s home, in terms of the current inter-county scene, there’s no doubting his loyalties.

From a personal point of view, it’s an exciting week.

“The onus is on ourselves. Cork have had a very good start to the league, they seem to have improved based on the two games but they won’t get ahead of themselves as it’s early days.

“You want to look at the bigger picture. We’re up in the Liam MacCarthy and Division 1A for the first time but it’s going to be a tough task staying there.

“We’re playing Cork this week and then our next two matches are against Limerick and Galway. There are no easy games but we’re looking at the bigger picture and we approach these games with the focus on us and how we can improve.

“We’ve had two games already. We had a tough opener down in Clare and that was a bit of an eye-opener but we looked at it as learning. We identified work-ons, made improvements and then we gave a better display against Wexford the week after.”