Ciara O’Sullivan ready for another joust with Dublin’s Gold standard

Sinéad Goldrick of Dublin is tackled by Ciara O'Sullivan of Cork during last year's TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Senior Football Championship semi-final. Picture: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

Ciara O’Sullivan is not sure of the exact year. Either 2003 or 2004, she reckons. That’s about the sole detail she’s uncertain of, though, for the match in question remains crystal clear in her mind over a decade and a half later.

It was an All-Ireland U14 semi-final, Cork versus Dublin. O’Sullivan, as has rarely happened since, was called ashore before the final whistle had sounded.

It wasn’t that she played particularly poorly. More so, she wasn’t let play.

No sooner had the young Cork forward reached the sideline when she sought a match programme to learn the name of the Dublin defender who had, in O’Sullivan’s own words, “absolutely roasted” her.

Who was it but current Dublin centre-back Sinéad Goldrick, their U14 duel the first of many across club and inter-county level.

“Sinéad probably doesn't remember this, but I remember being taken off in an U14 match against Dublin. I looked at the match programme to see who in the name of God was that because she absolutely roasted me,” O’Sullivan recalls ahead of the latest Cork-Dublin showdown this weekend.

“I've remembered that U14 game since, and there is a good chance we will be near enough to each other again on Sunday.” 

There’s far more than a good chance. Indeed, about the only certainty of tomorrow’s ladies final is that O’Sullivan and Goldrick will again go hip to hip.

The Dublin linchpin wore the number seven shirt in their semi-final, but has in each championship game she’s featured in this winter taken up station at centre-back. There she'll find O’Sullivan on Sunday, the fourth time the pair will stand in each other’s shadow on the concluding afternoon of action.

And even though Goldrick is the defender in this particular duel, the drive-forward mentality of the seven-time All-Star means O’Sullivan will have to do the tracking on occasion. The latter is acutely aware of such.

“That is the question: Am I picking her up or is she picking me up because that is often the thing with Goldie, you often end up chasing her for a lot of the match even though you are the forward. We have had good battles going right the way back to U14.” 

The Cork centre-forward was her team’s outstanding performer in the semi-final win over Galway. As well as kicking 1-2 from play, the 30-year-old four-time All-Star had a hand in several other scores. Her movement off the ball, meanwhile, created space for teammates to exploit.

Despite 13 long and demanding seasons with Cork under the belt, O’Sullivan is motoring as well as she ever has in the red shirt. Her competitive edge is as sharp and pronounced as ever.

As manager Ephie Fitzgerald told this writer earlier in the week, “If my life was on the line and I wanted somebody in my corner, Ciara would be there.”

No question but lockdown served her well. As she says herself, she didn’t know she needed the break until she came out the far side of it.

Not that the accountant fully downed tools during the almost three-month shutdown of late spring and early summer. 

Herself and younger sister Doireann regularly ventured over to the pitch at the back of the local primary school in Mourneabbey, sharing the small patch of grass with sheep, rabbits, and any other animal that happened upon their makeshift training sessions.

“In a very, very strange year, it is probably one of the years I am enjoying football the most," the eight-time All-Ireland winner remarks.

“We have been very lucky with the club, Mourneabbey, to be playing right up to December each year since 2014. This year, the restrictions and lockdown gave me a chance to have a break from football and that helped me to come back a lot fresher. It was nice to totally switch off from football.

“The club finished on November 23 last year and Ephie, in fairness to him, gave me January and February off, so I wouldn't have thought any more about needing a break when I rejoined the panel in March just before lockdown hit. 

I would have driven on and that would have been it.

“It is only now, looking back on it, that I really do appreciate that I did need that proper break. No more so than other girls, you are always going, going, going, and you take it for granted that you are going to be training and playing matches. It is nice to step back and take a break from that.

“I obviously would have found it different if there were matches still going on and I wasn't involved in them. It was easy not miss it when there was nothing to miss.” 

All-Ireland finals at this time of year are nothing new to O’Sullivan and the four other Mourneabbey players on the Cork panel, their 2018 and 2019 seasons ending with All-Ireland club titles in late November and early December.

How dearly Ciara would love to sign off 2020 with a Christmas All-Ireland.

“To be in a final in the run up to Christmas is surreal, but definitely where we want to be. We do believe we can win. We wouldn't have trained so hard in recent months if we didn't think we had a chance of winning.

It will take a massive performance, and maybe a bit of luck as well.