O’Sullivan braves the flak of fickle fans

Darran O’Sullivan revealed he faced the ire of Kerry supporters in his workplace following the Kingdom’s limp display against Tipperary.

The 2011 All Star, an employee in Ulster Bank’s Killarney branch, admitted fans peppered him with comments in the wake of the unconvincing display in their Munster semi-final in Thurles. He also received criticism about the team’s performance on his Twitter account.

“My boss Justin Healy is sound — he always looks after me coming up to games especially ones like this one against Cork.

“After the Tipperary game, I was at the counter on the Monday and the Tuesday and I had to listen to some questions and some comments.

“All the ‘experts’ were in those two days. He’ll hide me away down the back and keep me busy this week.

“I work in a big football town but I work with a great group of people and they always make sure I’m away from all the questions.

“If they know there’s someone who has come in just to talk about football they’ll make sure there’s a reason to pull me away. I’m well looked after.”

O’Sullivan was taken aback by the negative reaction to the victory in Semple Stadium. He insists it will be forgotten.

“People get carried away — it was the first round of the Championship. In Kerry people want to see that fluid football and things going right all the time. It was just one of those days when it didn’t go right. In fairness, we played a hungry Tipp team that are improving. They’ve had a lot of success at underage so it’s bound to come through. They had nothing to lose. But football is about winning a game and getting over it. Nobody is going to be talking about this game at the end of the year.”

O’Sullivan was in scintillating form in last year’s meeting between Kerry and Cork in the Munster final, only behind his namesake Declan in the man-of-the-match stakes. David Coldrick, the man in the middle for that game, is in charge again and O’Sullivan hopes he brings a common sense attitude to a game that will have its fair share of needle, given the rivalry.

“Adrenalin runs high. All the Kerry fans want to get one over the Cork fans and vice versa and it’s the same with the players. We’re all fans too and we all want to get one over on the neighbours.

“You have to have a bit of common sense. It’s a big game for any referee. When there are only little schemozzles, it should be ‘cop on, get on with it’. But you have to know where to draw the line and I think that’s where the players have to use their own common sense. You can’t always be down to the officials.”

In such a high intensity fixture, O’Sullivan knows referees will make mistakes.

“I get confused with all the referees — I get their names mixed up and everything! I try not to worry about it too much. They go about reffing as best they can. You know they’re going to make mistakes and get decisions wrong but I just try to focus on my own game and keep my mouth shut if they do make mistakes. It’s a tough game to referee. There are going to be bits and pieces going on everywhere.”

According to Kieran McGeeney, Kerry’s physical edge is masked by the skill of their players.

The impressive size and stature of the Cork team is better known and O’Sullivan is expecting knocks.

“You’re going to get the odd push and shove and you’re not going to like every challenge that goes in against you but you take it.

“There’s no bad blood — it’s handbags. You laugh about it after but you expect it in every game.”