My Career: ‘Working in the press box in Croke Park on match day is absorbing’

Name: Sarah O’Donovan

Age: 40

Lives: Frankfield, Cork

Job titles: Corporate Governance Associate / Hurling and Camogie Pundit

Salary bracket: €70,000+

Education background: Seven years in UCC. I completed a Degree in English and History of Art before completing a Law Degree.

Hobbies: Travel (Some big trips this last while with my husband Aaron - Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Morocco and Nashville, Tennessee). Watching hurling and camogie (now living vicariously through those players lucky enough to tog out every week – a knee injury has retired me against my will!). Entertaining our dog Donie, his next adventure is a trip to France in August.

Describe your job(s) in five words: Fast-paced, detail-oriented, sociable, autonomous, flexible.

Describe yourself in five words: Extroverted, assertive, articulate, resourceful, resilient.

Personality needed for this kind of work? Both roles require similar attributes. My role in corporate governance requires me to be incredibly organised (lots of moving parts). My punditry work requires diligence. It is only made easier by the amount of time I spend watching games and reading articles/listening to podcasts (easily 20 hours a week on top of my day job).

How long are you doing these jobs? I have been working for a law firm in Dublin for the past seven years. I started punditry in 2017, presenting the sports round-up on The Six O’Clock Show on Virgin Media 1. I was a contributor to Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio 1 before taking up a regular punditry role with Off The Ball on Newstalk.

How did you get these jobs?

Corporate Governance Associate: Following the completion of my law degree I moved to Dublin. I worked for the Mark Pollock Trust as a project manager for four years. Mark is blind and paralysed and is an internationally renowned motivational speaker. I helped Mark run his speaking business and manage Run In The Dark, the annual global event that raises awareness and money for research into a cure for paralysis. In 2018, Mark was relocating to New York for a spell, and I took the opportunity to explore work options related to my law degree. I initially worked as a paralegal in a law firm for a year before the opportunity to work in corporate governance presented itself.

A HR executive in the law firm approached me regarding an open role in the Asset Management and Investment Funds Department. I am now six years in that role and in that time, I have completed my studies at the University of Ulster to become an Associate in Corporate Governance.

Hurling and camogie pundit: While in UCC I worked as a contributor to then Evening Echo’s sports department. I reported on club and intercounty games across hurling, football, camogie, and ladies football. When I moved to Dublin, I returned to intercounty camogie, lining out for the Dublin camogie team for three years. The novelty of having played for Cork and Dublin was a talking point, and I think that decision to play for Dublin was the catalyst for what came after. In the past eight years, I have had the opportunity to do various radio and television gigs, notably as a panellist on The Sunday Game and regularly as a hurling and camogie pundit on Newstalk’s Off The Ball.

Do you need particular qualifications or experience?

My role in corporate governance requires a law or business background, but day to day I am reliant on my English degree. In short, I am responsible for providing a record of the board meetings I attend, and these meetings can be dissertation length (10,000 to 20,000 words).

Punditry is my opinion, based on more than 30 years of playing and watching sport. It is my experience as opposed to any qualification that has influenced my punditry. I have been part of a number of high performance units over the years, some successful and some not, and have had numerous managers, each with their own unique style of communication.

This experience is what I lean on when I am assessing the merits or otherwise of a team’s performance on any given Sunday.

Describe a day at work:

A day at the office: On the day of a board-meeting I will be in the office before 9am. I will double-check the attendees and time slots for the various reports before greeting the board members.

I will briefly discuss the running order of the meeting with the chairperson of the board before meeting commencement. Meetings can take anywhere from 1 to 6 hours, depending on the size ofthe entity and the number of sub-funds. Comfort breaks can be a luxury so once the meeting has ended, an hour in the fresh air is definitely welcomed.

When not attending board meetings, my work is quite administrative; company registration office filings, Central Bank of Ireland filings, and maintenance of company books and records for audit purposes.

A day in Croke Park:

Earlier this month, I was a co-commentator for the All-Ireland camogie quarter-final between Tipperary and Kilkenny. I travelled to Croke Park with my former Cork team-mate Anna Geary. She was a Sunday Game panellist for the game and that morning we had spent an hour reviewing our independent research together to ensure the numbers tallied.

When we arrived, I had a quick chat with former Wexford camogie player Ursula Jacob, also working on the game, before heading up to the press-box to meet my co-commentator Liam Aherne. After sound-check and a quick review of changes to the teams, the ball was thrown in. Co-commentary is definitely easier than commentary! Liam does the lion’s share of the talking and I chime in with my thoughts on how the teams are performing. The game went to extra-time and Tipperary came out on top.

We quickly vacate our seats to allow Ger Canning and Cyril Farrell to take theirs for the hurling game. Later in the afternoon, I was pitch-side to film a segment for The Sunday Game to preview the All-Ireland final hurling between Cork and Tipperary. And then it’s back to Cork on the Aircoach, arriving in Cork at midnight. The glamour!

How many hours do you work a week? 50-60 hours during the GAA intercounty season (January to July) and 40 hours in the off-season (August to December).

Is your industry male or female-dominated?

In work, the boardrooms are predominantly male, while a female in hurling punditry is definitely niche!

There are very few female voices talking about hurling on radio or television currently.

Does this affect you in any particular way?

My experience at the law firm has been incredibly positive. There is great respect shown for a job well done. Gender is irrelevant.

Punditry can be frustrating. I have experienced both men and women disregarding my opinion simply because I am a woman.

Is your job stressful? How? Rate it on a scale of 1-10:

I would say my corporate governance role can be stressful, or certainly busier than what is manageable in the course of a workday.

I don’t find punditry stressful per se, but live television is nerve-racking.

Do you work with others or on your own?

I work on my own for the majority of the time, but board meetings can be sociable and days in the office are sociable.

Working in the press box for match days in Croke Park is absorbing. It can be chaos on the field and in the press box, everyone has a vested interest.

When do you plan to retire or give up working?

I’ll realistically be working for another 25 years unless I win the lotto. If I won the lottery, I would quit work and write full-time.

The books are unlikely to be Pulitzer Prize-winning tomes, but I’ve always loved words and their power.

Best bits: Hybrid working, self-direction, job satisfaction, exhilarating days in Croke Park.

Worst bits: Long hours – simply put.

Advice to those who want your job?

Working in corporate governance is a happy medium for those looking to work in a law firm but that do not have an interest in working as a solicitor.

A law degree opens many doors, but a business degree can also be a route to work in corporate governance.

Punditry boils down to passion. What is it that you are passionate about?

I don’t speak on cricket, basketball, swimming, things I know nothing about. I speak about hurling and camogie. I’ve stayed in my lane.