Kingdom to reap rewards of O’Sullivan’s fairytale romance

THE best is yet to come from Declan O’Sullivan — or so Liam Hassett has told him.

Having tied the knot with his childhood sweetheart Michelle in January, O’Sullivan was informed by his former team-mate that marriage is good for your football career.

“He told me when he got married he started playing great football so hopefully that’ll work for me as well,” smiled the Dromid Pearses man.

After taking an extended break from the game to get hitched, honeymoon and basically put the feet up, O’Sullivan returned to Kerry colours when he came on as substitute against Armagh last month.

He followed that with a satisfying 70 minutes in last week’s win over Monaghan and now faces into a final round game with Down in Killarney on Sunday which, providing Kerry win and Cork fail to beat Armagh, will see the Kingdom into the Division 1 final.

Despite a training camp in Portugal being pencilled in for the weekend of the decider, O’Sullivan insists Kerry want to reach what would be their fifth top-flight final in eight years.

“Absolutely, it would be great to get to a league final against the Dubs, that would be great preparation for the championship. But Cork are probably in the driving seat. But we’ve had a successful league.”

But what of the training camp if Kerry do win through to the showdown? “I’m sure the county board have some plan in place if we do get to the league final.”

Football is what O’Sullivan wants right now after a long winter rest — his first significant sojourn since 2003.

“I enjoyed my break. I spent five or six years flat out between club football and being involved in six All-Ireland finals in a row as well. It was important to take a step back, just to probably enjoy it again a bit more.

“At that level it gets very intense and you become very focused. You can forget that you have to enjoy it. Especially as a forward as well you have to be instinctive and fresh and sharp.

“Otherwise you become stale and it can become hard work at times. So it’s important just to relax and obviously getting married and going away (helped).

“It’s been great coming back to it with a bit of freshness and hunger and obviously with fellas nipping at your heels.

“When myself and Paul (Galvin) were away a lot of fellas stepped up and were playing great football. It’s putting it up to us to come back and prove our worth.”

The competition for the two midfield spots diminished following confirmation David Moran tore the cruciate ligament in his left knee in the Monaghan game.

“He’s devastated at the moment. David’s a big character in the dressing room so he’ll be missed there,” rued O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan believes veterans Michéal Quirke, who returned to training on Tuesday night, and Tommy Griffin will soften the blow of losing Moran. But their availability to Jack O’Connor and the fact nobody retired from the panel at the end of last season illustrates things aren’t so transitional for Kerry.

However, O’Sullivan believes these are changing times for the Kingdom camp as opposed to the team.

“I wouldn’t dispel it. I think Jack has proven it’s a transition of the panel maybe more than the team.

“He has really tried to find six or seven new fellas to come in and shake up the squad.

“Maybe when the panel was at 30 it was very easy for fellas to coast along.

“That’s the good thing about the panel coming down to 26. Jack finding five or six players, a lot of young fellas.When a few of the fellas from the U21 squad come back into the panel it is going to really shake up.”

Sunday’s game will bring back bad memories for Kerry of last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final defeat. The absence of the suspended Galvin and Tomás Ó Sé is still pointed at as the reason for that defeat but O’Sullivan rejects that theory.

“We just weren’t at the races. I think a lot of people are pointing at missing the two lads, Paul and Tomás, but I think on the day we were just flat-footed and were caught on the hop.

“Maybe our preparation mightn’t have been spot on. It’s something that we have to look at. As players we have to look at our preparation and our kind of hunger levels.”