Paudie emerges from behind the Rock

First there was Sully, the Rock, the one and only Diarmuid O’Sullivan, a powerful and imposing presence protecting club-mate Donal Óg Cusack and the Cork red-zone for over a decade. Now there’s Paudie, another O’Sullivan, youngest brother in the formidable hurling family from Cloyne.

Like his oldest brother, Paudie too operates on the edge of the square but at the other end of the pitch — where Sully was the crusher, Paudie is an assassin, a finisher, and has been since he first picked up a hurley.

He played in his first county senior final for Cloyne when he was a mere 15, featured again in two more losing efforts in the two following years. He was quickly marked out by the county minor selectors, then the U21s, and by 2008 — still a teenager — he was on the Cork senior panel.