‘One for all and all for one’ as Paudie eyeing Rebel return

June 2001. Cork v Limerick in the Munster quarter-final in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

It’s the day when big brother Diarmuid scored one of the most spectacular points in hurling championship history. The day he thundered out of defence, flattened the unfortunate Jack Foley with a massive shoulder and from over 100 yards, belted the ball over the Limerick crossbar. Paudie O’Sullivan was close to the action as a spectator.

“It was one of the luckiest points I ever saw!” he laughed.

“No, it was amazing, something that will probably be replayed for years to come. A couple of us played a primary schools game the same day. I think there was myself and Hoggie [fellow Cork forward Patrick Horgan]. We were sitting on the sideline watching that game and the spectacle of it. The stadium was absolutely jointed that day.”

Last year, different grounds but another memorable Munster championship day, with the final in the Gaelic Grounds. Paudie was again close to the action but again, a mere spectator. By now he had long graduated to the senior team himself (made his debut as a 19-year-old in 2008) but early in 2013, in a club game with Cloyne, he suffered an horrendous double leg-break.

It marked the end of his inter-county season. He could only sit and watch as Cork lost both the Munster final and later, the All-Ireland final. The feeling?

“Disappointment for the lads more than anything else, disappointment also for yourself knowing that you weren’t in a position to help them. You train with them all year and play all your life to play in big games like Munster finals and All-Ireland finals. Not to be able to do that was certainly disappointing but you have to put that to the back of your mind and do as much as you can for the team in general.

“I was lucky enough that the management asked me to come along with the team for the whole year last year and to help them in any way I could. It was more than anything putting on a brave face for them and encouraging them as much as I could and hiding my own disappointment.”

He’s good at that, is Paudie, shelving his own disappointment for the good of the team. So it is that even as he worked his way back to full fitness he has yet to win back his starting position.

“As a sub, you can’t be selfish about it ‘Oh, I’m not playing here and I’m going to throw the toys out of the pram and sulk in the corner’. I’ve been around long enough now, if I can pass on anything to the fellas playing before me, it’s certainly something I’ll do.

“Obviously you want to be starting,” he continued, “but I know myself over the last few weeks I haven’t been ready to do that. There is certainly no resentment from me towards management or any of the other players. The lads there are flying and my job now, if I’m called upon, is to try and come on and get a few scores.”

He has already done that this year, twice in fact, against Waterford in the quarter-final replay win, then against Clare when Cork got a small measure of revenge for that September loss. The former marked Paudie’s first appearance for Cork since the injury and was greeted by a huge ovation in Semple Stadium.

Those hard times, though, gave him a renewed appreciation for the privilege he enjoys of being able to play at this level.

“Sitting on the sideline watching the lads is a tough place to be, knowing that you can have absolutely no involvement, knowing that you can do nothing about it. It’s probably given me more appreciation of what this year is going to be like. In a way, it probably brings back your childhood, all you want to do is be back out hurling. This time last year I’d have done absolutely anything to go out and play a game of hurling, football, training. It really takes you back and you appreciate it more when you get it back.”