Shane O'Donnell wants 'holistic' approach to hurling calendar debates

The Munster Hurling Championship tends to deliver and this year's edition is no different in terms of its unpredictable nature.

Which means throwing permutations out the window and focusing in a laser-like fashion on the next assignment is the way to go for the players involved in the white heat of battle.

That's how Shane O'Donnell is looking at it as Clare return to action on Sunday (live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player) against a Waterford side that currently sit second behind Limerick in the table

Brian Lohan's panel came into the highly anticipated Ennis opener against Limerick on 21 April off the back of the psychological boost of winning the Allianz League title by overcoming a recent bete noir in the shape of Kilkenny.

A Limerick comeback rained on their parade in the sunshine however. But the Banner rose to the occasion a week later by plundering their own reserves of resolve to beat Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

In between, Cork have stunned Limerick; Waterford being on three points means the Déise already have more points gained than in 2022 and 2023; and Tipperary are still just about alive.

All of which makes it nigh on impossible to have a sense of who will be heading the top three places in the traffic jam out of Munster.

"There are so many permutations and different ways that it can spin," O'Donnell, who has just been named GAA/GPA Player of the Month for April in hurling, told RTÉ Sport on Wednesday.

"You can have a result like last weekend where you think things are settling a certain way and you can predict how it's going to fall out (but) you have everything blown back open again

"I think the trick is probably actually just to focus on the Clare games and really think about what you can do for those matches.

"You get to