This man is deadly serious

THE curious case of the dog in the morning.

At least Tom O’Sullivan thinks it was something of the canine kind he knocked down on the way to Cork airport last year.

The Kerry defender remembers it happened on the Mallow side of Millstreet. With a 6am flight to catch to Portugal for the squad’s warm weather training, he had slept through the alarm clock.

In the subsequent rush from his native Rathmore, he had little time to check on the poor dog and couldn’t find it. What it was doing walking across the middle of the road at 4am he doesn’t know but he wasn’t going to miss that flight and risk being read the riot act by Jack O’Connor.

“Basically I struck a dog,” recalled O’Sullivan. “I don’t know what happened to it.”

The tale might not rank up there with Darragh Ó Sé breaking a woman’s leg in a burst to get to training in 2002 but it belies a little of what we’re led to believe about the five-time All-Ireland winner.

Tom O’Sullivan does care. Maybe not about the welfare of an ailing animal but most definitely his football.

He wouldn’t have lasted 13 seasons without doing so. The script of sacrifice is one he knows off by heart now. He’s grown to like the banality of chicken and pasta. He looks forward to games, especially winning them, because they mean he can have a drink or two afterwards.

Last weekend, he hit the cinema twice. He recommends Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Jonathan Ross, eat your heart out).

Yet, in the week of the Leaving Cert results, it’s fitting to remember what O’Connor wrote about O’Sullivan in his book: “If he needed 200 points in the Leaving, he might get 201.”

There’s no doubt laid-back O’Sullivan verges on horizontal but he does a splendid job of not letting on how much the game means to him.

Still, there are occasions when he lets his guard down. He flexed an eyebrow earlier in the year when a newspaper article suggested none of the Kerry defenders would need to show IDs to a nightclub bouncer.

Yes, Killian Young is the only member of the back six not over the age of 30 but so what, says O’Sullivan.

“I disagree with what has been said about us,” said the three-time All Star. “With age comes experience so that answers that question. You read a game better with experience. Whatever might be lacking in the legs is compensated for in being able to anticipate better what’s going on around you.”

When he eventually decided to return to the panel in March — “I got an extra few months’ break from Jack”, he laughed — he never earmarked it as a last hurrah.

“I haven’t really thought about it. Once I made the decision at the start of the year that was it. I’ve been around since 1999 and I’ve a lot of football played.

“When I do decide to do it [retire] I owe nothing. I have my medals. There will be no regrets. When you have achieved something out of the game it takes the pressure off a bit. You enjoy your football a bit more.

“You can see a lot of us are enjoying it this year. Not as much is expected out of us because we lost last year. We’re not under the spotlight to win All-Irelands. That wasn’t the case three years ago.”

Still, Kerry have trademarks. Take O’Sullivan. The man who famously coined the line: “I’ve five Munster medals and enough of them” back in 2006 (he has seven now) is known as one of the best big game players in the panel.

“People have said I’m a Croke Park player but in fairness I’m hitting my peak fitness at that time of the year, especially when you come back later in the year. It takes you that bit longer to get fitter.

“I’m feeling good now though. I’m not feeling any bit of wear and tear and the hunger’s strong.”

His appetite to get one back at his fellow players for perceived slights is voracious too.

In the teammates series run by the Irish Examiner during this year’s championship and other squad profiles, he has been accused by Darran O’Sullivan as no longer being the fastest in the panel and the worst dresser by Marc Ó Sé and Bryan Sheehan.

On the first charge, the Moyvane-based garda pleads not guilty.

“I still do more than my bit. Darran thinks he’s the fastest. I’m not one to blow my own trumpet but...!”

On the second allegations, he argues the same. “I think I saw something where Marc was saying I wasn’t the best man for clothes. You can tell Marc is a teacher. Shirts and pants all day, every day.”

O’Sullivan is still getting jip for the gold trainers he wore to the 2009 All Stars. The pink t-shirt that has been so often ridiculed in the camp was a present from his sister.

His brother — and Kerry’s former physio — Dan got married last month. O’Sullivan was best man. As the wedding fell on the Friday before the fourth round qualifier, he had other reasons to be thankful that it was Cork who were beaten in the Munster final.

Given his vicinity to the Cork border, he enjoyed that victory but following the shock reverse to Down last year, the win over Limerick gave him more pleasure.

“It was going to happen at some stage,” he said of Kerry’s first All-Ireland quarter-final defeat.

“We can’t win all of the time. We’re constantly told in Kerry winning is a habit and it was key we got back into that. We’re one step further than we got last year and that was our intention at the start of the year.”

He is not assuming for one second Mayo aren’t capable of tripping up Kerry again. He was struck by how intense and physical they were against Cork.

“They got the kick up the arse they needed after London and now they’ve beaten the All-Ireland champions. They should be favourites for Sunday.

“So much has changed since 2006. The game itself. There are a lot more short kick-outs and they’re supposed to have a stronger midfield than us. Forwards have a little extra bit of work to do now in helping out us backs.

“But that’s the way the game is gone. Everything is built from the back.”

On such pillars as O’Sullivan, so too has Kerry.