Giving the old Páirc a perfect send off is Paudie O'Sullivan's Cork forever moment
Cork goalkeeper Anthony Nash and Paudie O’Sullivan celebrate after the 2014 Munster hurling final victory over Limerick. Picture: ©INPHO/James Crombie
Ten championship summers have thrown in and flashed by since Cork last took Limerick down the Páirc. The end of the old Páirc. The perfect send-off. The perfect return for Paudie O’Sullivan. The next chapter for Paudie O’Sullivan. Or so he thought.
The opening scenes of his return were scripted more for fiction than a Munster hurling final. The opening scenes of his return were a great deal chaotic.
Half-time in the 2014 provincial decider. O’Sullivan knew he’d be entering the fray at some point in the second-half, so he trotted in to use the toilet, swallow a few wine gums, and offer encouragement to those already in the trenches.
On his way back out, Anthony Nash caught hold of him.
“He said, ‘come on now, straightaway when you are in, let's go’,” Paudie recalls.
“Anthony saw my confused reaction and said, ‘you know you're going on’? ‘I said no one told me’.”
Pa Cronin had picked up an injury the Thursday previous. The captain survived the opening half and reckoned he could survive some of the second too, so Paudie decamped to the Blackrock End corner to continue loosening out.
Jogging back out for the restart, Pa realised he was in fact not good to continue. He promptly decamped to the sideline. Brian Gavin restarted proceedings, Cork with only 14 on the field.
“There was a scramble to see where I was gone. Dave Matthews came shouting down the sideline, ‘you are supposed to be on’.” It was a second half of Patrick Horgan arrowing points into the Blackrock End and Seamus Harnedy fizzing the sliotar past Nickie Quaid.
Ten years on, how the red faithful crave a repeat of such pyrotechnics from Hoggie and Harnedy.
For O’Sullivan, there was a point with his second touch. There was the title-clinching green flag with six minutes remaining. At the presentation area, there was an emotional embrace with dad Jerry, then Munster vice-chair, and mam Gearóidín.
Fifteen months on from breaking his fibula and tibia, there were tears spilled.
“There was a lot of pressure to give the old stadium a fitting send-off. There was pressure too because we hadn’t won anything in the JBM era.
“Rolling the sliotar underneath Nickie Quaid and the Blackrock End going absolutely insane, that was like a standing still moment because I had been through so much. It was only a Munster final after, but for me, it was a moment I'll never forget.”
He’d seen minutes in both the Munster quarter-final and semi-final. But July 13, 2014, was O’Sullivan announcing he was back. He expected the graph to climb from there. It never did.
There was massive disappointment at not starting the subsequent All-Ireland semi-final against Tipp. Though he didn’t know it, his last championship start was already two years in the rearview mirror.
Cork had four outings in the summer of 2015. O’Sullivan was introduced in all four. He started their 2016 League opener at centre-forward, Cork lost, and he was returned to a bench role for the rest of spring. A role he had grown to loathe.
At the end of the league, himself and then manager Kieran Kingston met at the Elm Tree in Glounthaune. Kieran told him he didn’t fit into where Cork were looking to go. Paudie agreed. He’d never shied away from the fact he didn’t come loaded with pace.
Neither, though, did he shy away from giving his thoughts on that final spring.
“We had a frank discussion. I expressed disappointment that I started the first game and was the only fella who didn't get a chance to rectify a poor performance.
“My last touch for Cork was a goal in Thurles. I said to him, there are not many fellas on the panel who would have scored that goal.
“There was no ill-feeling toward management (of which older brother Diarmuid was part of). I was happy enough to step away. I was fed up with the sub role at that stage.” At 27, his Cork days were done.
“You get cast into that role of impact sub. Either I wasn't doing enough to get out of that role, or I was doing too much in the role to get myself out of it, and then you are stuck in no man's land.
“You have to be at peace with the role. Toward the end, I was heading towards the attitude of, ‘fuck sake, here we go again’.”
He wasn’t always the forward they turned to on the bench to try and turn the tide. He started every championship game in 2011 and ‘12. And then, disaster.
Sitting in Costa in Little Island, I hand the phone across the table and show him the Evening Echo back page picture from April 24, 2013. There he is perched on a stretcher inhaling whatever the paramedics are selling.
“I’m like a pregnant woman,” he laughs. The Imokilly-CIT county championship game had to be abandoned because of his broken tibia and fibula. Coming down from an aerial contest, he heard a “horrendous crack”.
“I wouldn't be the greatest in those situations. I put my head back, closed my eyes, and waited.” He had played Fitzgibbon with CIT the year previous. As he was loaded into the ambulance an hour later, the opposition formed a guard of honour and clapped.
“I remember thinking, ‘jeez lads, g'way home for yourselves, don't be waiting around for me'.” He spent two days on a trolley at CUH. The trolley sat next to the entry to the nurses station.
“They had a door closer that hadn't seen a drop of WD-40 in months. Every time someone came in, you’d hear the beep of the swipe badge, then the click, click, click of the door, and then the door would slam shut.
“They were in and out every five seconds. You'd be just about to go to sleep and you'd hear the beep, the click, click, click, and you’d be just waiting for the bang. I remember thinking, this has to be as bad as it gets.” Surgery was eventually performed. Months of rehab awaited.
Ger Cunningham was Cork coach, and so his sons Ben and Sam - kids at the time - were routinely brought along to training. Physio Declan O’Sullivan used to have the pair chase Paudie up the steps of the stadium.
“The embarrassment of being caught by two young fellas would push you.”
In September, he had the four screws taken out that had been placed into his ankle and knee. But while the shin healed, the calf never did. A third surgery addressed that. Still a nagging pain persisted.
The pain came to a spewing head the following January. Himself and a work colleague, Donncha O’Donovan, were out doing an electrical job.
Paudie professed to not being able to walk. The other fella was having none of it and asked for proof. Paudie rolled down his sock to where the two pin holes were, gave a little squeeze, and there followed an explosion of pus from his ankle.
“He ran off to nearly get sick, and I wasn't far behind him.” He was on the operating table above in St James’ the following morning. The whole leg was infected. Surgery number four in nine months.
The fun hadn’t even half begun. There were eight more days in hospital on a drip. He was sent back down the road with a portable drip in his arm to intravenously feed himself antibiotics four times a day.
“I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic and spent two nights in the Bons, just to really add insult to injury,” he added.
“The leg break took that extra half yard from me. Never really felt the same peak physical fitness, pace, or power.
“Someone always jokes to me at home that ‘you peaked at 17 in your last county final with Cloyne in 2006’ because I did my cruciate with Cork early the following year. Sometimes I'd say you are nearly right.”
For all he endured though, July 13, 2014, is his forever. Ten years on, he wishes that same day for those now in red.
“Pat Ryan and his management badly need this win, the Cork public needs it, so let's hope for everyone's sake in Cork that they can do it.”
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