O’Sullivan relishing getting to grips with challenging new assignments
WITH Ulster having travelled to Wales a day prior to their stirring Champions Cup victory over Scarlets on Friday night, young Eric O’Sullivan was left with plenty of time to kill in nearby Swansea in the hours building up to what would be his first ever Champions Cup start.
The 23-year-old, who has featured in every game for the province despite never having made a senior outing prior, made sure to keep to his routine, and that meant working on his public sector accounting assignment in the team hotel.
“Regardless of what level I’ve played at, I try to keep the same process and treat it like another game,” said O’Sullivan, who earned his place in the Ulster Academy after an invite to turn out for the ‘A’ side.
“I had a uni assignment to hand in, so I spent some of my morning doing that. It was good because I didn’t spend hours focusing on the game getting too built up.
“Then for three or four hours, it was head down and focus on the game. You just try to treat it like any other game.”
Whatever his preparation entailed, it certainly seemed to work. The Ulster scrum, which had undermined a number of efforts earlier in the season, was solid, even with O’Sullivan up against the returning Welsh international Samson Lee.
It was in the loose he was most prominent though. A former back-rower himself in his youth, his tackle count was bettered only by Jordi Murphy.
The Dubliner has been a real
boon for former prop Dan McFarland — and not just because Friday appeared to position him as the squad’s only fully-fit, match-hardened loosehead.
It’s been four years since Tom Court walked out of Kingspan Stadium for the final time, and the years since then have seen a variety of men fill the No.1 jersey.
Callum Black was a regular having been Court’s primary back-up but appeared to fall out of favour with Les Kiss, arguably showing his best form in the space between signing his deal with Worcester and the move be- ing announced. Andy Warwick made over 100 appearances for the side too before his most recent injury, while Kyle McCall has spent long spells on the sidelines himself.
And once-touted import Schalk van der Merwe quietly returned to South Africa having totalled fewer than 120 minutes of pitch time in his year and a half under Ulster’s employment.
O’Sullivan may have seemed an unlikely man to fill the void, but it’s no stretch to say that he is now the first choice — even if he is still in the middle of a steep learning curve.
“It’s about trying to learn so much more, getting in on analysis, working on my running lines, maul D, scrum set-ups, everything like that,” he said.
“It’s just one step at a time for me.
“We’re working hard with Aaron (Dundon) and Dan (on the set-piece), just trying to progress.
“We knew our roles but it was just about getting more aggressive in there and making sure we were drilling boys when we got the chance.
“That’s been big for us, being more aggressive with teams and not willing to take a backwards step. We’re fighting for every inch.”
That was certainly evident on Friday. There were 84 minutes on the clock when Stuart McCloskey secured the game-sealing turnover and still in the thick of it was O’Sullivan, further boosting that tackle count in the crucial last stand.
So what’s proving tougher — pro rugby or those pesky college assignments?
“Ah, definitely the rugby,” he concluded with a laugh.