Captain gutted to be missing out
UNFORTUNATELY for Cork ladies’ football captain Doireann O’Sullivan, a back injury will prevent her from leading out the team against Kerry at Páirc Uí Rinn on Saturday.
The Mourneabbey star didn’t feature during the successful national league run and she acknowledges the importance of patience in ensuring that the problem clears.
“I suppose I was having a lot of self-pity at the start,” she says, “but you have to get on with it and remain positive.
“I was looking at a few different options, but your back is a tricky one, it tends to be a bit slower. I just need to rest and rehab and do things meticulously, but it is frustrating. Some days you get up and you think you’re fine but the next day, you feel like you’re back to square one so it’s a low one.”
Being a spectator is never easy though, and O’Sullivan admits that it has been difficult at times this year. “Absolutely, yeah,” she says. “I’ve had to ring Ephie [Fitzgerald] once or twice, not saying that I don’t want to go training but just that I can’t face it. It’s tough, all you want to do is be out playing and, no matter how hard training is, there’s always great craic there.
“You’re missing out on that and you’re under pressure to try to get back, it’s gone so competitive now that everyone’s progressing and going forward and you feel like you’re stuck or going backwards.”
However, she has played some football in the recent past, helping her club finally reach the promised land of an All-Ireland club title last December as they beat Dublin’s Foxrock-Cabinteely.
“It was relief,” she says.
“It was five years in the making, we had lost three All-Irelands and one All-Ireland semi, so thankfully we got over the line. It’s probably my greatest sporting memory.”
That win once again earned Mourneabbey the right to select the Cork captain, with Doireann taking over from her sister Ciara.
“Ciara is unbelievable, she was there four years,” she says.
“The team that wins the county gets the honour of having the captain and I’ve been on the panel next-longest after Ciara. Martina [O’Brien] is there, she’s the vice-captain, we’ve loads of leaders on the pitch. It is a massive honour but everybody is important.”
There are additional duties to being skipper, but she doesn’t mind the extra responsibilities.
“I suppose there are small things,” she says.
“Helping out with the gear and the jerseys and reminding girls of stuff. Hopefully, the biggest duty would be for the captain to lift a cup, that’d be great. I didn’t feel I was missing out because I didn’t get to lift the league trophy, I was just disappointed that I wasn’t getting to play, which is the best part of anything, just being out there.
“The Galway match was extremely tough, we thought we were cruising but they came back and when you dig out a win with your friends, having worked really hard for it, it’s the best part of football.”