Comfortable in his role and in himself, O'Sullivan enjoying life in green and gold
Graham O'Sullivan of Kerry in action against Colm Neary of Roscommon. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Summer has arrived in Caherciveen. Our view on this fine Saturday afternoon is the banks of the River Ferta.
For company is the bust of Daniel O’Connell and the brilliantly insightful conversation of Graham O’Sullivan.
It’s a week out from the Munster final. A hamstring issue incurred during the Portugal training camp means O’Sullivan’s eighth championship season in green and gold won’t throw-in at Fitzgerald Stadium on Sunday lunchtime.
Not to worry. We hadn’t bargained anyways on getting bogged down in how tomorrow’s 70 minutes might arrange itself.
Cork, a disruptive hammer, and even Daniel O’Connell himself are irrelevant to this chat.
Sat on a stone wall at the entrance to Caherciveen, the 28-year-old opens up on the person and the position.
Graham O’Sullivan has an All-Ireland medal in either pocket. Both carry an unlikely backstory. A pair of backstories and medals that have next to nothing in common.
The original, while long told, requires very quick recapping as context for the sequel.
In his first three seasons with Kerry, O’Sullivan didn’t start a single one of their 13 championship games. He lived off a grand total of 51 championship minutes during those first three years.
For his fourth summer, in 2022, he was present for every second. The first three times he put boot to ball in the All-Ireland final ended with three converted marks.
His maroon dance partner, Rob Finnerty, was the first Galway player called ashore.
Skip on to last year. The No.2 shirt swapped for No.12. A footballer relocated and his role redefined. His athleticism cashed in on. Closing off space in defence, creating space further up.
Unsung is how several described O’Sullivan’s 2025 brief. The unsung man himself opts for more catching language.
“To put it bluntly, it's an unsexy role, really,” he says.
“It's doing a lot of the work that is unseen. You're clocking up a couple of kilometres, you're doing the not nice stuff such as tracking and running.
“I would never expect to come away from any game with real plaudits, and I know that going in. I don't expect people to be saying, I've shot the lights out or I've done anything major.
“Definitely thankless, but thankless in the sense of not getting any praise.”
A study of the many player rating pieces from last year’s All-Ireland final shows 7s across the board for the primary school teacher.
The 7.5 awarded by this newspaper appears to be the highest mark bestowed on the Dromid Pearses clubman.
If there was a misunderstanding of his function by those scoring him, there was clear understanding from O’Sullivan of where he would and wouldn’t be appreciated.
The sole internal wrangling he had on that front was not conforming to the prototype Kerry forward and what he’d offer instead of green and white flags.
“It's one of those roles where it's within the team that you're appreciated as opposed to publicly, but that's fine. What I want is praise from the boys inside. If the players and management are happy with what I'm doing, that's enough for me.
“Forwards in Kerry have always been known as shooters. In Kerry, it's expected you should shoot the lights out. That was difficult in its own regard, that you're not doing that, you're doing something different to maybe Kerry teams gone by.
“But if you peel it back and look at the likes of Donnchadh Walsh, he was a supreme athlete, he chipped in with scores, so you're probably trying to mould your game a small bit off them.
“Like, I came from corner-back to up there, it's a whole new world.”
Introduction to this new world came against Mayo on March 1 of last year. The role came with no clear set of IKEA instructions. There was no piece of paper telling him what screw A should connect to.
As selector Aodán Mac Gearailt admitted on the eve of last year’s All-Ireland, management had to put their trust in O’Sullivan to almost design the job himself. Early assembling did not go well.
“The first half against Mayo, that was a tough outing,” he says, a smile shooting across his face when reflecting back to that unpleasant start.
“I definitely struggled. You're trying to figure out the role itself and how you play it. You're trying to figure out forward play, which mightn't be so natural.
“And then you know there's a small bit of outside noise about what in God's name is a corner-back doing up wing-forward. So, there's a bit of a difficulty in knowing that's happening. You’re just trying to, not so much block it out, but put in enough performances that you're getting accepted, initially, in the role.”
Acceptance was a long road. In the extra-time Munster semi-final epic against Cork, O’Sullivan seemed lost in the chaos. His brief and its effectiveness were hard to distinguish.
It was the Cavan game as late into the season as June 21 where he finally felt he’d got a handle on the unsexy and unseen.
“And we were under the pump at that point, but I was like, ‘hold on, I think I might have got this’. I would have been relatively happy with how Armagh and Tyrone went. It was late, but I got to grips with it.”
Never mind your player ratings. O’Sullivan’s impact is accurately captured in the stat showing him as Kerry’s top assister in last year’s championship.
COMFORTABLE in his role, in himself, and in his existence as a Kerry footballer. There’s been some amount of personal growth from the first-team rookie who suffered a panic attack in the build-up to the 2022 All-Ireland final.
He opened up on that episode and the insecurities that fed into it in the months after the ‘22 success. He hasn’t stopped opening up since.
“Unfortunately, it's a male thing that something has to happen for you to be like, ‘Oh Jesus, maybe I should do something about this’. I would never shy away from saying that I would still, if I needed to, frequently go and meet someone to have a chat with them.
“I have no qualms and no shame in saying that I would seek outside help, if I needed it. It's not saying that I'm under pressure, but like anything, it's healthy to vent sometimes.”
If self-confidence was once an issue, self-awareness has always been in plentiful supply. A young man in view of the full picture.
“I like to see myself as a Kerry player, but I also like to see myself as just Graham, the normal, regular person too. And I know that this is going to end sometime, so I put a lot of time into that Graham as well because that's important that when all this is finished that Graham, the regular person, is well able to function within society and not rely on being a Kerry footballer to do something.”
His and Aoife's little man of five months, Tadgh, is certainly helping in that regard. The new role of father allows no over-fixation on football.
We go our opposite ways out of Cahersiveen. The football summer has arrived. Same as last year, Graham O’Sullivan will arrive into it yet.
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