O'Sullivan's pact now is to raise the stakes

ALL-IRELAND SFC FINAL KERRY v CORK:THE STORY goes that 10 minutes before the end of the 2006 All-Ireland final against Mayo, with Kerry already home and dry, Tom O'Sullivan and Mike McCarthy shook hands on the edge of the small square in front of the Davin Stand. McCarthy vowed it would be his last game for Kerry. O'Sullivan said something similar.

Mayo’s Conor Mortimer, who O’Sullivan had just held scoreless, could only shake his head in wonder.

So figure this out: On Sunday, three years after their retirement pact, O’Sullivan will start the All-Ireland final against Cork at corner back – and McCarthy will start at centre back. O’Sullivan’s Rathmore club-mate Aidan O’Mahony, the player who would have covered for either of them, will most likely start on the bench. And they say there are no second acts in Kerry football.

Unlike McCarthy, O’Sullivan never actually retired, lulling himself into another three seasons of holding the fort somewhere in the full-back line. McCarthy’s comeback – after almost three years out of the game – has been nothing short of sensational. Now stationed at centre back, it’s as if he never left the game.

If Kerry are to have any chance of stopping Cork’s juggernaut on Sunday week these are the men you’d want standing in the way. And they say the championship is no country for old men.

O’Sullivan has a thing about playing Cork. He grew up in Rathmore, hard on the border with Cork, the frontline of the great football rivalry. He has a thing about playing Cork because nothing gives him more satisfaction than beating Cork.

When Jack O’Connor famously dropped him for the 2006 Munster final against Cork – payback for O’Sullivan’s apparent casualness at training – they said it was like excluding him from a family wedding. In a sense it worked, even if O’Sullivan has never quite lost his laid-back approach to the game.

“Cork?” he replies, when asked what it means to play them – Again! “Sure they beat us well the first day. They beat us well the second day. So I suppose we’re going to have to play above our best to beat them on Sunday, certainly. If we’ve to have some chance anyway. They’re a very impressive team, without a doubt.

“Very good at winning their own ball. They’ve thundered through the championship, whereas Kerry have only limped through, really. We’re certainly going to be up against it. If we don’t raise it they’ll beat us. Simple as that. I hope every player knows that.”

He turns 31 in two months, and if O’Sullivan is still tinkering with that idea of retirement then Sunday’s result may well decide it. But if he supposedly had enough in 2006, what is driving him on in 2009?

“I think the older you get the more you want to win, because you know you’re shoving on a bit, may only have one or two more years left. Personally, anyway, there’s no problem with hunger. But I really don’t think hunger is an issue with this team.

“We’re back in an All-Ireland final, and know anything can happen now. We’ll just have to see how it goes. Cork will have it, the hunger. Sure they’re on a mission.”

He may be under a little less pressure too, now that Tommy Griffin has taken the reins at full back. O’Sullivan always looked more commanding in the corner:

“Maybe, but positions really don’t matter as much in the modern game. You could be inside in the corner one day or inside full back another day. It depends on the type of player you’re marking as well. To be fair, our half backs, midfield and even out at half forwards have done a lot of hard work out there. Put pressure on the ball coming in. That’s made the job a lot easier for myself and Marc and Tommy.

“Like it worked so well against Dublin. But then I think Dublin just stood off us as well. They let us come so far we could kick points even from far out. That’s the mistake they made. We were well up for it though, after all the criticism. We wanted to put a lot of wrongs right, and I think that took a lot of pressure off us as well.

“Especially going into the Meath game. And even against Cork on Sunday.”

From the moment they lost the Munster semi-final, Cork have never been far from their minds. They’ve met Cork five times in Croke Park this decade, and won every time. “I don’t know. People are saying we peak at the right time. We peaked maybe for Dublin, but went down again against Meath. The physical training has been done, so it’s all mental work now.

“But we are lucky to be here, I’ve no bones about saying that. I think we were very lucky against Sligo. They got a penalty at the end of the game. Thankfully, Diarmuid Murphy saved it. But you can’t predict that. I think as well, though, a lot of those teams are under-rated in the qualifiers.

“They come into the game ready to fight for everything, like dogs. It was very, very hard to play against them. I think sometimes the better teams don’t fight as hard as the poorer teams.

“But what’s taken us this far is taking every game as it comes. We’ve never looked ahead. Going into the qualifiers, we never thought of an All-Ireland. It was each round as it came. That’s what got us this far.

“We still don’t really know where we stand. Or what kind of team we’ll bring up to the final. Hopefully, it will be the good Kerry team.”

Tom O'Sullivan

Position: Left corner back.

Club: Rathmore.

Age: 30.

Occupation: Garda.

Championship debut: Munster SFC v Cork, 2000.

Honours: 4 All-Ireland senior; 6 Munster senior; 1 All-Ireland under-21; 2 Munster under-21; 3 National League; 3 All Stars.