Mourneabbey’s driving ambition for All-Ireland glory
The pair have been driven up from Cork city for Friday evening training by older sister Ciara. Present too in the car is first cousin Máire O’Callaghan.
The eldest of the four O’Sullivan sisters, Roisin, typically takes the wheel in carting the entire clan to and from training, but her Toyota Corolla is sparsely populated as she makes the drive from Shannon to Mourneabbey little over a week out from the All-Ireland club final.
An accountant with KPMG, the Mourneabbey ladies football captain has been based up the country in recent weeks and as much as her three sisters can leave her tearing her hair out on occasion, she’s missing the craic that comes with a full carload en route to training.
“Ciara and I live together in the city, as do Doireann and Máire, and then Méabh is in Brookfield having just started in UCC. It makes sense we all travel up together,” she explains.
“It is only when you travel by yourself do you realise the fun you’d be having in that car. On the way home, we’d be talking about everything that happened at training, football and otherwise.
“It is good to have them. I don’t know anything else. Even with Cork, we pile into the car and head off training or to matches.
“It is nearly always me that drives, the girls prefer when I do. Ciara is not the best driver!”
All four sisters — one of four sets of siblings on the panel — will start tomorrow’s All-Ireland club decider; Méabh positioned between the sticks, Roisin at centre-back, Ciara at right-half-forward and Doireann in the left corner.
Conversation between the four, as you’d expect, has been predominantly match-focused of late.
“We’d be having quiet words with each other, all right. Méabh might say to one of us that we need to show a bit more for her kick-outs. Even though she’s the youngest, she needs no minding. She’s well able to hold her own.”
A permanent fixture on the club’s adult team since the age of 14, Roisin is one of seven players, along with Ciara, bidding to complete the full set of All-Ireland club medals in Parnell Park this afternoon. She was midfield for both the junior and intermediate final victories in 2005 and 2007 over Athgarvan (Kildare) and Glen (Derry) respectively.
“Eva O’Donoghue, who was captain when we won the junior in 2005, is in the midst of organising a 10-year reunion to mark that win at the end of this year.
“It seems like that game was a lifetime ago. Like there are pictures of the game at home and Doireann and Máire [O’Callaghan] are tiny...
“I remember there was a bit of war at home because Dad wanted us out playing even though we were only 14, but Mam was totally against it. We’re the better for it.”
Cork senior glory eluded the club until last October and while the Munster crown was added in the weeks after, Ulster champions Termon, more specifically Geraldine McLaughlin, crushed their All-Ireland dream.
Shane Ronayne was at the breakfast table in the O’Sullivan household the morning after last year’s final defeat. The postmortem in the parish the night previous had run late and Gerry O’Sullivan wasn’t going to leave the team coach without a bed. 2014 was Ronayne’s first season involved with the club. He’d known Roisin through his role as UCC O’Connor Cup boss and was approached by a handful of players at the tailend of the previous year to gauge if he was interested in joining their set-up.
Donoughmore had scored a 3-10 to 1-14 quarter-final win over Mourneabbey at Killavullen in the first week of September, 2013, and the general consensus amongst the panel was that their potential was not being realised.
Ronayne met with manager Dominic Gallagher in the Hibernian Hotel in Mallow that Christmas, the pair plotting the team’s breakthrough season.
“Our first meeting with the players was two weeks after I met Dominic. The players were asked to come up with words to describe themselves and the prevailing theme was that there was more in this group. They knew they had the talent and maybe it was a case they weren’t applying themselves properly. Maybe there wasn’t total unity there.
“When you are coming in from the outside, you are not going to get involved with any old team. I knew there was potential there.
“They gave themselves that extra push last year and were duly rewarded.”
Over the breakfast table that December morning, Ronayne was further enamoured by this group.
“Ciara and Doireann were at the table and even though it was less than 24 hours since the match, talk had turned to next year; could we improve, what could we improve on? They were already looking at getting back to the biggest stage.”
Manager Dominic Gallagher is asked to describe his troops.
“Professional,” he replies. Dedicated, focused, hungry. He could go on all night but there’s a session to oversee.
Whatever about the result tomorrow, he knows he need not worry about a performance.
“We know what it is like to lose and we don’t want to lose again. We don’t want to come away empty-handed two years in a row.
“They’ll go hammer and tongs for it. They always do.”
L Martin; F Courtney, H Kingham, N Lynch, J Geoghegan, S Courtney, 7 Courtney; E McElroy, A Casey; C McConnell, C Courtney, F Lafferty; S McConnell, N Callan, R Courtney.
M O’Sullivan, E Coakley, CA Stack, A O’Sullivan; K Healy, R O’Sullivan, N O’Sullivan, M O’Callaghan; C O’Sullivan; S O’Callaghan, B O’Sullivan, E Meaney; E Harrington, L Fitzgerald, D O’Sullivan
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