Mark O'Sullivan will take 1999 All-Ireland final regrets 'to the grave'
Former Cork star Mark O'Sullivan has admitted his under-performance in the 1999 All-Ireland football final "still stings" and is a regret he'll "take to the grave".
The ex-attacker played every minute of the '99 Championship for Cork and contributed 1-7, including a point in the final against Meath.
But Cork ultimately lost that game by three points and O'Sullivan, living in Massachusetts in the US for the last 18 years, felt he had "one of my worst games ever".
Speaking on Duhallow GAA podcast Crossing The Line, O'Sullivan said he regrets thinking about things too much in '99 and not playing with the same "cockiness" and "arrogance" he'd displayed in earlier years.
"In the final, things didn't go great," said O'Sullivan. "I got the first ball, stuck it over but then after that... the funny thing was I was out in front of my man most of the day and I was letting balls go through my legs, dropping it. That one stings a bit, even 21 years later. It's kind of tough to talk about it.
"If I had one wish, I'd probably wish that the 20- or 21-year-old arrogant fella that had been playing against Kerry and Dublin, that that was the fella who went out in '99, not the fella who was worrying about everything. Hindsight is great of course but that one still stings.
"It was weird, when I was younger I probably had that touch of cockiness and that bit of arrogance about me. I didn't care about anything. I did care about playing and I did care about winning obviously but I didn't care about who I was marking or where I was playing or what kind of ball I was getting.
"But in '99, I think I started to think too much about stuff, what you should and shouldn't do, and putting negative stuff in my head more than anything which is the worst thing you can do."
O'Sullivan said he felt a weight of expectation to win that final and to achieve a rare All-Ireland double following the hurlers' success a fortnight earlier.
"They had won and there were parties in Cork and they were trying to keep us away from everything and they wouldn't let us go to the All-Ireland hurling final," said the Newmarket man. "And I remember Jimmy Barry-Murphy coming down to us, and I love JBM, I loved Jimmy Barry-Murphy, but he came down to us to give a speech which, probably, we didn't need.
"Four nights before the All-Ireland... in hindsight again, it probably wasn't a great move. There was a bit of pressure on but we didn't play great on the day. Personally, when I look back on it, I was better than that. It was one of my worst games ever. Unfortunately, it happened to be a day that I really needed to produce and I didn't. Unfortunately, I'll take that one to the grave."
O'Sullivan spoke of Cork's challenging training schedule under then Cork manager Larry Tompkins and revealed how his county career came to an end in early 2002.
"I walked into Páirc Uí Rinn and Martin Cronin from Nemo was with me," he said. "Larry handed us out an A4 sheet of paper. It was the training schedule for April and May I think of that year. I knew looking at it that my career was over.
"He went through it and in typical Larry fashion it was like, 'Okay, so we're training Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, a break Thursday, we're training Friday, Saturday, and Sunday'. And this was it for a whole month. Then he finished off with the killer line, 'I left Thursdays open so you could train with your club!' I was like, 'Ah here, now, seven days a week...'"
O'Sullivan enjoyed a successful Cork career overall and won three Munster titles along with All-Ireland minor and U-21 medals. He also won back to back Sigerson Cup medals with UCC in the mid-'90s and played for Munster.
"I remember as a young fella, as a nine-year-old winning an U-12 medal with Newmarket, and years later finding a little note up in my bedroom I'd written saying, 'I, Mark O'Sullivan, will play for Cork'. This was in 1983. When I think back on it, my dreams came through."
But O'Sullivan, who coaches local soccer now in the US, says he's grown disillusioned with modern Gaelic football.
"Honestly, (it's) awful, it's terrible to watch," he said. "I buy the GAAGO pass every year and I keep threatening not to buy it but I buy it for the hurling now, not the football. I fail to understand fellas training six nights a week and producing the level of football, especially at inter-county level, unless you make it to a final or something. I watched two club games last year when I was home last summer and it was unrecognisable from the game I played. I don't think I would have played, to be quite frank with you."
* The full interview with former Cork footballer Mark O'Sullivan on the Crossing The Line podcast can be accessed through their Twitter handle @duhallowpodcast
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
