By John Harrington
Cian O’Sullivan admits it will be a challenge for the Dublin footballers to block out the rising ‘Drive for Five’ hype as the season progresses.
A single-minded focus on taking one challenge at a time has been the calling-card of this Dublin team while winning the last four All-Irelands, but O’Sullivan knows there will be more distractions than ever in a year in which they can become the first ever team to win a five-in-a-row.
“Oh yeah, completely,” said O’Sullivan. “That's the challenge for us.
“In work or meeting friends and family and they're talking to you about these things, it's just something that you have to try to deal with and maybe change the topic or just avoid those situations.
“But it's definitely that can seep into your subconscious without you knowing it. So guys have to be aware of that and deal with it as best as they possibly can.”
One of O’Sullivan’s strategies for avoiding the Drive for Five chatter will be to disable his social media once the Championship is up and running.
“I would at times, yeah,” said O’Sullivan. “Certain times of the year, just delete the apps and get rid of things like that. Some guys on the team don't and it doesn't bother them.
“For me personally I like to just switch off and put 100 per cent focus on whatever game it is.”
If the Dublin players were in any doubt that their rivals will be extra-motivated to dash their five-in-row dreams this year they were given a reality check when they were defeated in Round 3 of the Allianz Football League by Kerry.
There was a carnival atmosphere in a packed Austin Stack Park that night, and the manner in which both the Kerry players and supporters celebrated afterwards illustrated just how much lowering Dublin’s colours meant to them.
O’Sullivan was a spectator rather than a player in Tralee that night but the defeat still stung.
“Any defeat stings, yeah,” he said. “Any time you lose it's not nice. I think, you know, absolutely zero complaints, Kerry were by far the better team.
“The fashion in which we finished out the game in the last 10 or 20 minutes glossed over the scoreboard a little bit. And Kerry seem to be going really well, they had another good victory against Galway at the weekend.
“For us, trying to take the learnings out of that game and you try to take positives out of these things, any team I've been involved with in Dublin since I've started playing, it's the defeats you learn way more from than the victories.
“Because it gives you really good cause to pause and reflect and work on things. I look back to 2009 when we were defeated by Kerry and then Cork in 2010 and Donegal in 2014.
“They were all really good learning exercises for the team, albeit the defeat at the time was really tough to take.
“I think the team was a much better team from coming out the other side of them. With any defeat you're looking to try to see can you take that positive out of it and make this team a better unit going forward.”
You wouldn’t be surprised if the experience of losing to Kerry in Austin Stack Park and the manner in which the home team celebrated afterwards would fuel Dublin’s fire if the teams met later this year in the All-Ireland Championship.
But O’Sullivan insists that vowing revenge on Kerry isn’t on Dublin’s agenda.
“If we start thinking about potentially playing Kerry later on in the summer, then it's a distraction,” he said.
“And we've been very mindful of trying to shut out those distractions over the last number of years.
“I think guys can see the value in doing that and trying to keep things in that unit of the team because we've always managed to get ourselves into a good head-space for the last number of years and we've gotten the performances as a result.
“So it's a system that we'll stick to.”
It’s a system that clearly works. Dublin bounced back from that defeat to Kerry by defeating Mayo by 1-12 to 0-7 last Saturday in a match they would have won even more comfortably were it not for the heroics of Mayo goalkeeper, Rob Hennelly.
Cormac Costello – Dublin’s best player so far in this year’s League – was on fire once again, scoring 1-2 from play, and looks like he’s ready to finally nail down a place in the starting XV if he can remain injury-free.
“He’s playing really really well,” said O’Sullivan. “Cormac has been involved in the squad for the past number of years. He’s picked up, for a guy trying to break into the squad, he’s picked up niggly injuries.
“That’s probably been unfortunate at times. He seems to be on a really good run now over the first four games, he hasn’t really been hampered by the injuries and he’s been getting really good game time.
“It’s been great to see him doing on the big stage what we’ve seen him being doing in training over the last number of years.
“He’s an incredible talent, really incredible talent so I’m delighted for him personally to be putting in the good performances that we ask of him and he’d be asking himself to be consistent with this for the next however many league games we have left and into the summer.
“That’s the real trick.”
Cian O'Sullivan was at Parnell Park to launch AIG Dub Club Health. The Heart Safety Roadshow is the first programme in the initiative that will provide training around CPR, choking, defibrillator/AED usage, storage and maintenance. Go to www.aig.ie/health to find out more.