At some point on Saturday afternoon Cian O’Sullivan will drive down to the Forty Foot for a quick swim. He’s been doing this before most games for years now and the All-Ireland football final is no different.
From there he’ll head up to the parents with his girlfriend, Danielle, where his mother will have cooked them a hearty dinner. Then it’s back to their own place where they’ll pick out a movie on Netflix and switch off for the rest of the evening, careful to avoid any talk or even mention of Croke Park.
There was actually a close escape two years ago before the 2015 final: both his parents being from Kerry, they were invited on to RTÉ’s Up For The Match, and O’Sullivan didn’t know. Only Danielle did, so she made absolutely certain to hold onto the TV remote so that they didn’t flick onto RTÉ2.
“You talk about distractions,” he says. “That would have been one.”
It seems everything O’Sullivan does before All-Ireland final day is about routine, and sticking to it. If anything, Sunday’s showdown with Mayo – his fifth final in seven years – is more routine now than ever, and nothing will distract him even if it tried to.
“Yeah, I’m probably bit more chilled out going into these games,” he says. “My routine the night before, the morning of the game, is pretty consistent. I just switch off.”
At age 29 this comes from his considerable experience but also the realisation the only energy worth expending on All-Ireland final day is in Croke Park. The Mayo players will know this by now too, but with four All-Irelands already won – not forgetting his All-Ireland club title with Kilmacud Crokes in 2009 – O’Sullivan also has complete faith in his routine.
Only when arriving at Croke Park does he allow himself to begin to think about the task at hand: “A positive of being through that routine over the last number of years is that you know the pitfalls coming into an All-Ireland final. Little things like tickets can really mess with your head and organising stuff like the banquet afterwards.
“There’s loads of admin stuff that you have to just get out of the way as soon as you can. The key thing is managing the distractions and then making sure you’re 100 per cent focused going into the game. I’m playing with Dublin for eight or nine years now and it’s something I’m very conscious of.”
Now, however, he allows himself become a little more aware of the moment. “My first memory of the drive from the team hotel to Croke Park, through the crowds, people banging on the bus and cheering it as it drives by, I would have kept the head down, and the earphones in, and just not get distracted by the people outside.
Special place
“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 trying to savour those moments because I know with the experience of playing in the last number of All-Irelands, being in those big games, that they don’t distract me. We’ve also been fortunate enough this year that every game we’ve played there’s been a three-week gap so we’re into a good kind of routine in that respect.”
Then suddenly it’s game time. O’Sullivan describes these last three weeks since the semi-final win over Tyrone as a “funny place to be”, knowing all the hard training, all the strength and conditioning, is already done. There is still that minor matter of nailing down his starting place, but such is his consistency that normally takes care of itself.
O’Sullivan has been dropping back to the full back position this summer, but even with that sees his role on the field as similarly routine: “I think what’s changed maybe is the way teams set up against us a bit and I’ve gone into full back for one or two games.
“But other than that in the league and in most of the games this summer I’m playing in that sort of sitting back-six role, and I’m pretty comfortable there. It’s being able to play when the game is in the melting pot, that’s the key thing, something that you’re constantly trying to achieve.
“And you’re constantly trying to improve as well because if you do get to a point when you think, ‘Okay, I’m sitting pretty here and ticking all the boxes’, that’s when complacency sets in. So you’re constantly trying to raise the bar and improve, to get better and better.”
Again, all sounds pretty routine – and O’Sullivan might well be talking about his job as a tax accountant for PriceWaterhouse Cooper as he is All-Ireland final day. So what does motivate him once the ball is thrown in?
“It’s the 36 men within the squad, all the hard work and sacrifice that we’ve put in over not just over this season but the seasons before. It’s a very special place to be, because only you guys within that circle can really look each other in the eye and say, ‘I did the best I could do for that team’.
“We’re going into an All-Ireland final with a fantastic opportunity ahead of us to do something special. We’re well aware we have a strong group of players, that we’ve had good success over the past number of years, and that it is a really strong opportunity for us to make the most of what we have.
“So that’s the thing that really motivates you, 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.”
Which of course Dublin also have down to a routine by now.
