Working as he does as a Tax Director with BDO, Cian O’Sullivan doesn’t have too much time to sit around and dwell on the glory days.
But it’s on weeks like this one when it hits him. The evenings are long, the hype is building, Championship is in the air. For 13 years, he traded off the adrenaline of big games, national occasions and summer Sundays.
Nowadays, his body won’t even stand up to the test of playing a game for his club. He tried that, in a recent League match for the Kilmacud Crokes’ second team but having come on as a sub, he was heading back off ten minutes later with a torn calf.
For a finish, it was hamstring, calf and hip issues that ultimately did for his Dublin career and they’ve finished his club career too. He says it point-blank now that that’s it forever, his body won’t let him go back.
It’s no wonder it hurts.
“You’d have to miss it on weeks like this,” says O’Sullivan, ahead of the AIB All-Ireland senior football semi-finals.
O’Sullivan won eight All-Irelands as a player for Dublin
“I’m two years out of the game, but these are the moments you live for. I’m not too sure about early January training…but if you could come back for weeks like this, it would be great.”
The 35-year-old was unlucky in the sense that, having had an injury-enforced inter-county retirement, he didn’t get the chance to play exclusively with his club. It was from everything to nothing.
That’s why, in some ways, he still follows both the club and inter-county scenes very closely, so as to sate that appetite.
“I’ve a young family so a was little bit constrained as regards to going to games. We took clients to the final last year, but Dublin weren’t playing.
“But yeah, I’d still be close and familiar with those in the dressing room, so I’ll be going along this weekend as a massive supporter. You’re looking on thinking back on the glorious days and wins that you had, and re-living them too.
“I would be a fanatic of Gaelic football. My parents are from Kerry, I spent a lot of time there as a kid, went to a lot of League games down there, so was born and grew up in that world. It’s very dear to my heart,” he adds.
There has been some criticism of the modern style of Gaelic football this year, but O’Sullivan deems it cyclical, and says he wouldn’t be overly concerned.
“I think these things are cyclical.
“This season now, there’s a lot of possession based keep-ball.
“I think it’s another challenge for teams to play and counter-act this.
“Let’s see who wins the All-Ireland this year because they’re going to set the standard and blueprint for others to follow. But I don’t think it’s something to get too worried about, because these things are always evolving and changing.”
As for the glory days, he looks back now. O’Sullivan is far from the only inter-county player who worked a high-pressure job throughout their inter-county career, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
As a tax consultant, manager and director throughout his playing days, he was however, a very busy man but he was something that was manageable, and something he’s become very accustomed to.
“My job is private clients based, so we look after, high net-worth individuals or family businesses and then we have a sports advisory unit within our team as well. So we look after a lot of sportspeople too and do a little bit of work with the national government bodies of sports,” he explains.
“It was busy, but you find the time.
“I don’t look back on that time as being too stretched or too stressful.
“Since I’ve stopped playing football now, I’ve a couple of young kids, so I’m used to that chaotic environment where you have to be quite organised.
“So getting up early or doing a bit of work at the weekends is not abnormal,” he adds.
“Wherever I worked, and whatever teams I was on, they always had a very person-focused approach, so they were perfectly open to catering to whatever works best for the person, as long as they were performing. That’s all that matters.”
“So it was manageable for me to juggle the two.”
