Routine build-up for Dubs sweeper
THE sense that the biggest annual weekend in Irish sport has become the norm for Dublin footballers can be grasped as Cian O’Sullivan goes through his regular routine ahead of the All-Ireland final.
Tomorrow morning, he will wake and go for a dip in Dublin Bay. The famed Forty Foot in Sandycove is his usual spot but he changes things on All-Ireland final weekend and heads for Seapoint in Monkstown. He will then have a hearty meal with his parents before relaxing in front of the telly with his girlfriend, Danielle. He almost makes it sound like any other weekend.
Things were different two years ago. It was Kerry in the final. O’Sullivan had spent most of his childhood summers down in the Kingdom as both his parents are from the county. RTÉ got wind of that and invited them onto Up for
the Match on the evening before. O’Sullivan smiles at the memory. There was high degree of subterfuge around him in the week leading up to that final, with family ensuring he didn’t find out that his parents were on television the night before the big match. Danielle had control of the TV that night, so he didn’t get to flick on RTÉ 1.
‘I didn’t know they were going to be on, because I would have gone mad!’ O’Sullivan remembers. ‘Danielle had the remote control for the night and she made sure we didn’t flick onto RTÉ. There was real espionage going on in the week leading up to the final. RTÉ were over in my parents’ house, and they had to make sure I wouldn’t walk through the door when the film crew was there. You talk about distractions. That would definitely have been one!’
O’Sullivan will play in his fourth All-Ireland final on Sunday (fifth if last October’s replay is included). His attitude towards the day has changed. Where once he kept his head down on the bus, listening to music on his headphones, he now tries to savour the atmosphere more.
‘I’m playing with Dublin for eight or nine years now, and it is something I am very conscious of trying to do the last number of years. My first memory of the drive from the team hotel to Croke Park, through the crowds with people banging on the bus and cheering, I just kept the head down,’ he recalls.
‘But now I’ve found myself looking out and trying to take it in and enjoy it because I know how special a place it is to be as well. I’m really trying to savour those moments because I know with the experience of playing in the last few All-Irelands and being in those big games I know how to deal with those things and they don’t distract me.
‘Because it is such a big deal that’s probably not at the forefront of your mind. What’s at the forefront of your mind is executing what you have to do for the team,’ he explains.
And what O’Sullivan executes for this Dublin team is still integral to their success. Having earned a reputation as the best sweeper in the game, O’Sullivan has found himself, more often than not, in the full-back line this year with the number three shirt on his back.
Against Mayo on Sunday though, he will likely sweep behind the half-back line and be expected to anticipate the danger from the Connacht side’s hardrunning half-backs.
The Kilmacud man accepts that his role has changed a little this year, but that has primarily been down to teams taking a different approach against Dublin.
‘I think what has changed about my role is the way teams set up against us. It means that I have gone into full-back for one or two games. Other than that, I’m sitting back in the number six role and I am pretty comfortable there, I like playing that role.’
O’Sullivan concedes that Mayo may try to drag him out of position if he reverts to a deep-lying centre-back role for Sunday. ‘If they are going to go six players up on us, we are not going to have an extra body there to mind the house so a lot will depend on how the opposition sets up. But personally, I wouldn’t have thought teams have targeted it as a ploy.’
Considering he has battled injuries in recent years, O’Sullivan is happy with how he is playing. And although he is aiming to win his fourth Celtic Cross on Sunday, he remains hungry for more success.
‘It’s a very special place to be one of the 36 men within this squad, because only the guys within that circle can look each other in the eye and say “I did the best I could do for the team”.
‘That is what really motivates me to be the best that you can possibly be, and being able to look each other in the eye and know that you did that.’