Year of frustration but also one of learning with Cork for Ballinhassig's Darragh O'Sullivan

After a season disrupted by injury, Ballinhassig hurler Darragh O’Sullivan reflects on lessons learned with Cork and his drive to deliver for club and county.

Pictured are Brian O'Shea, Cloyne and Darragh O'Sullivan, Ballinhassig, ahead of the Co Op Superstores 2025 Premier Intermediate Hurling Championship Semi Final, at SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork. Pic: Jim Coughlan.

A year of frustration. A year of education. A year still holding promise. Darragh O’Sullivan has no gripes with the road’s curvature.

Pat Ryan invited O’Sullivan into the Cork set-up ahead of the 2025 season. No surprise in that invitation being extended. The Ballinhassig clubman was corner-back on the county’s All-Ireland U20 winning team in 2023. Now senior boss Ben O’Connor handed him the U20 captaincy the year after.

The graph's rise continued into the early weeks of 2025. His Fitzgibbon form for MTU Cork was frugal and unforgiving. Misfortune then met him on the road.

During a Cork session at Páirc Uí Rinn in mid-February, O’Sullivan’s hamstring went in the middle of a sprinting drill. Four weeks out. He returned to training the week Cork decamped to Portugal for some warm-weather work. During their very last session at the Quinta do Lago resort, the same left hamstring went again. Another four weeks out. The window of opportunity to impress in his new environs again closed shut.

Although O’Sullivan saw no game-time in red across league or championship, there was no end of learning to his maiden year on the Cork bus.

“The injuries were unfortunate as I hadn’t picked up a serious injury in three years. But it was still a great year in there. You are looking up to your heroes and then you are coming in training with them, sitting in a dressing-room with them, it is a great feeling,” he says.

“I know I didn't get to play, but to travel with the team and experience how others prepare and get ready on matchday, and how they deal with playing in sell-out stadiums was great for me to learn looking ahead to the future.

“Even just observing what they are eating and drinking before games, or what their prehab/rehab is before and after training, it is all these little things that are going to kick you forward.

“But you can't just be starstruck in there either. You are there to do a job, put your best foot forward, and to make the fella next to you better as well. You are trying to get the little percentages that are going to push you on compared to the rest, make you stand out, and take that back to Ballinhassig so I can try and bring that into the next game and try and get myself back in with the seniors next year.” 

Ballinhassig’s campaign is still running. A Premier Intermediate semi-final against Cloyne this Saturday (Ovens, 7.30pm). The semi-final stage the club unsuccessfully contested in 2021 and ‘22.

O’Sullivan was a kid corner-forward when they lost to Inniscarra in 2022. He started this campaign at centre-back but has since returned to the attack in light of injuries to three other young panel members - his brother Adam, Brian Lynch, and Evan Cullinane - who have also grown in age, assertion, and value since the most recent semi-final campaign of three years ago.

And given those injuries they are fighting, narrowly claiming the second direct ticket to the semis, ahead of this weekend's opponents on score difference, was most welcome.

“Against Kilworth in our final group game, we got the last three points to push us over, which showed the depth that is there. We hope to bring that against Cloyne,” Darragh continued.

“It would be a great satisfaction for me if we got into a county final. We haven't had success or something to cheer for in I don't know how long, so the whole club is backing us the whole way throughout. Please God, we can get into a county final.”