Manager Davy Fitzgerald's decision to make a late switch to his attack with O'Donnell replacing Darach Honan, who has been nursing a quad injury for three months, proved a masterstroke.

The young full-forward, whose scoring heroics earned him the RTÉ man-of-the-match award, said: "It means absolutely everything. It’s tough times all around the country, and if you can lift people with these types of performance and these kind of days...look at the Hill, it's absolutely amazing, you can see what it means to them (the Clare fans)."

O'Donnell, who is in his first year on the Clare senior panel, dedicated the memorable triumph to the older players who have soldiered with the squad for many years with little reward and also Davy Fitzgerald's staff behind the scenes.

"I don't even know the hard work most of the lads put in every year and they get nowhere. This is for them, it's for the backroom staff. I'm the man who gets on the end of the goals but it's a team effort to get goals," the 19-year-old told RTÉ.

O'Donnell's presence in the team was well signposted down in Clare, with the rumour mill in full flow earlier in the week, but Fitzgerald deliberately left it late to inform the youngster he was starting.

"I only told him at 2.50pm today so he hadn't too much time to worry about the nerves. I rang him the last few days and said, 'you're probably going to come on at some stage', and we decided just to keep it from him. Now, probably everyone else around the county knew (he would start)," admitted the Clare boss.

Giving his take on things, O'Donnell revealed: "When we were getting food I got brought aside and told I was starting. I didn't know before that. Davy brought me aside and told me.

"I thought it was brilliant, I always wanted to start, but I was a bit surprised. In hindsight it made it easier. I slept great and got up this morning and couldn't wait for my chance to get on.

"Then when I was told, it was close enough to the game so I wasn't too nervous or getting tight about it. I was just excited to get out."

Confident the teenager would deliver given his fine form in the league and training, Fitzgerald quipped: "I asked him for four (goals)! He was very close to getting it too, so he was! Tony (Kelly) will tell you Shane O'Donnell in training over the last two weeks has been incredible.

"We played a match last Friday night, the As v Bs, and I never seen anything like it. In 21 minutes, we'd eight goals and nine points scored and we had to stop it.

"That's fact and we said, 'f***, it's a week too early...we're going too well'. That is the truth, we were absolutely flying it."

O'Donnell, one of Clare's recent All-Ireland Under-21 winners, was keen to praise his team-mates for their roles in his first half scoring blitz yesterday, which included a nerve settling second-minute point.

"The first two (goals) were absolutely given to me, handed to me on a plate (by passes from Patrick Donnellan and Conor McGrath).

"It's the stuff of dreams. The first 20 minutes I was in dreamland. You would wake up and say, 'that'd never happen'. I couldn't believe it out there, I couldn't believe it."

The Éire Óg clubman also gave credit to Cork for playing their part in another terrific advertisement for the game of hurling, at the end of a Championship which many are dubbing the best of all-time.

"Testament to Cork, they were a brilliant team, they never gave up the ghost. Goal after goal was going in and it didn't faze them, they just came back but thank God we came out the right side."