Sonia O’Sullivan: Rooting for Martin O’Neill’s men from Down Under

There are times in Australia when you feel like you might as well be living on another planet. Particularly at this time of the year, when so many of the major sporting events are taking place throughout the summer in Europe.

It makes for a strange contradiction in time. Even though here in Melbourne we are nine hours ahead of Ireland, you often wake up feeling left behind, or certainly left out of the loop.

This week was a good example. I went to bed on Monday night, knowing Ireland were about to embark on their first game at the European Championships.

In Ireland, you can’t avoid the football. But in Australia, unless you go looking for it, you’d have no idea whatsoever of the excitement and atmosphere that’s already building up across Europe. It was also a holiday weekend here, so starting the week on a Tuesday puts you on the back foot straight away. You wake up wondering where the weekly routine has gone.

Tuesday used to be the most important day of the week for me; it was when I did my main training session, and for many years everything else was built around it. It took a long time to break free of this routine, and sometimes I wonder if I ever will.

Lost touch

Tuesday is still a significant day in my week, as it’s when I start to come up with some inspiring and interesting thoughts for this column. The problem is when you disappear off to the small village of Warburton, for the annual Glenhuntly AC training weekend, like I did. It’s only an hour from Melbourne, but by the time you come back, you really do feel like you’ve lost touch with the rest of the world.

I got a quick reminder of this when I rang my mother, and she mentioned that Ireland had beaten South Africa in the rugby – three days earlier. News to me, however, and I realised it was time to get back online and check in with the rest of the world – and especially Irish sport.

So I’ve set myself up with the Euro 2016 app to keep myself up to date with all the games, and particularly so I’m reminded when Ireland are playing.

It’s not the same catching up on a game when you know the result. It’s not like watching an athletics meeting, where you can fast forward to what you want to watch, then catch up with the rest of the events later on. It’s also hard to find a spare 90 minutes on a school morning. So I couldn’t help but check the result once I woke up, even though I could easily have watched the game later, without knowing the result.

It was a busy morning, getting the two girls out the door to school, battling with traffic gridlock, all within a three-mile radius. Then it was a race back to walk Snowy and just about make my Tuesday swim group, without one mention of the game from the Stade de France.

I wasn’t hugely enthusiastic about going for a swim, thinking I’d rather stay indoors and replay Ireland against Sweden, sensing it was a good game. The temperature wasn’t helping either, as we were in the outdoor pool, but you soon realise it’s warmer in the water than out, and you forget those doubts when the rest of the group turn up, and you set about following the detailed session scribbled on a piece of paper in the plastic folder.

So, when I eventually got to play back the Ireland-Sweden game, it was great to see the positive energy that surrounded the team. I could sense the belief exuding from Martin O’Neill as he paced the sidelines, jumping up in frustration at the numerous missed opportunities, before Wes Hoolahan scored that fantastic goal in the 48th minute.

It’s a long way to the final whistle when you score three minutes into the second half. As it turned out, this is the area of concentration and focus that Ireland will have to work on for the next two group games, against Belgium and Italy.

It won’t be long before I’ll be home amongst that European Championship buzz, and not just the football. The European Athletics Championships start the second week in July, in Amsterdam, and with that the hope of some positive performances from Irish athletes yet to make any impact on the athletics season ahead of the Rio Olympics.

Strange contradiction

Then, when the Olympics start, it will be back to that strange contradiction in time, as most of the finals in Rio will be taking place after midnight, Irish time. Although I plan to be burning the midnight oil, catching all the action as it happens.

This weekend will test me, as Ireland’s game against Belgium on Saturday could be a little too late in the Melbourne night for me. Although I might just have to find my Irish flag this week, and fly it from the tree in front of the house, not just to send the good vibes and positive energy across the time zones, but to get the neighbours curious about events outside of Melbourne on that faraway Planet Europe.

I sensed a bit of that already, watching the call to action by Conor McGregor to the Irish football team, ahead of the Sweden game. Let’s hope that Martin and Roy Keane had a special screening for the team. It certainly ignited positive energy and belief for me, and looking at the reflection of great moments in Irish sport, the possibilities for achievement are endless. Nothing is impossible