Spring slumber, summer success?

QUARTER-TO-SEVEN on a Saturday evening isn’t everyone’s idea of a suitable throw-in time, but you won’t find Declan O’Sullivan complaining.

Saturday games mean lots of tweaks to a player’s regimen, pretty much all of them good. Having a Sunday off tops everyone’s list but teatime starts also mean no need for mounds of pasta and chicken when everyone else is scrambling eggs or slicing banana onto their muesli.

“If it is a two o’clock game (on a Sunday) you get up and have breakfast and you’re then trying to eat a big meal at something like half-eleven or twelve o’clock so it’s just ridiculous,” explains O’Sullivan. “It’s very hard to do.”