O'Sullivan hoping for more bright days ahead

When Cillian O'Sullivan first started to make a name for himself he was captain of a Meath minor team under Andy McEntee that reached Leinster and All-Ireland finals, the Moynalvey player must have thought his whole career was going to be that good.
However, fast-forward six years later and after two years out with a crippling back injury O'Sullivan is craving for a return to the glory days that made his early years playing football a wonderful time.
"That's, what, six years ago? That's too long for me. Constantly thinking back to that moment, if you look back over your career and ask, 'What have I done?' and you only see a minor All-Ireland (final)," said O'Sullivan.
"You kind of think to yourself that I need to have something (more), I think I'm a better player than that so I'd feel I need to have something more to show for it. "The lads involved with the panel at the moment, there's only a handful of them with Leinster medals.
"The minor team I was involved with, we had a good run but that's been the only real success, at underage. 
"I think Meath are finally really copping on to that, in terms of getting the underage structures right because that's where it's going to come from. 
"You can see the amount of minor players from that team who are involved today, it's quite substantial, players don't just pop out of nowhere, it's driven by the coaching structures that are in place and the culture that you breed in terms of what the players place their values on."
That back injury sustained by O'Sullivan almost ended his playing days, but his determination to get back playing for Moynalvey and Meath was unwavering and despite all the dark days he is delighted to be out the other side.
"I had a bad back injury a couple of years ago, I was a year trying to rehab it to get it right and I had a year after surgery trying to fix it which left me bed bound for a while and then in a brace for six months," said the Moynalvey man.
"It was a tough way of getting a bit of perspective on sport so I think that has me really appreciating and not wanting to give up the football having missed two years of it.
"I went away to Australia after minor and the year I came back I played against Galway in the league and that’s what I relied on for the next two years. 
"I played the Monaghan game the next week and was gone after that. It’s hereditary, I got a bad dose of it. I tired to rehab it, but after that there nothing to do and the last resort was surgery and that was really to give me quality of life because I was in constant pain. At 19 or 20 to be in constant back pain wasn’t great.
"The surgeon said he hadn’t done much of the surgery because they are so rare to do, most of the time cases like mine don’t get as far as this. 
"I had to get a fusion and I was bed bound for two to three months after that. After that I was six months rehabbing. 
"My first competitive game was against UCD in the O’Byrne cup that was my first year playing, we played div 2 and lost to Derry in the qualifers. 
"The psychology helped there, it wasn’t really a physical challenge it was the mental challenge to stick to it and using your social support groups. 
"You can imagine when you’re stuck at home in bed how much you crave social interaction. The amount of Friends I watched was criminal. That gave me perspective. "I love going for a run now, anything physical. If a fitness session is coming up or a hard session where we are getting drilled I feel myself getting tired I just think ‘cop yourself on.’ 
"I have metal in my spine holding me together! At that time I didn’t want to leave anything to chance so my diet at that time was great, I ate all the anti inflammatory foods I could find. 
"I exercised every day, repeat, repeat, repeat no bother to me because at the end of it if it didn’t work out I wanted to be able to say I did everything I could. 
"I didn’t touch anything that could have spoiled it essentially because I didn’t want to look back and think that stupid night out or had I eaten better I might've given my body a better chance to recover.     
"I keep reminding myself to enjoy football, to try and be a better player after every session, I’m not talking about being better than the opposition I’m on about being better against Cavan than I was against Clare and then that’s the important thing."
Last weekend was a special one for the O'Sullivan clan with the three boys in the house in action in three different sports, in three different countries on three different days.
"Mark was in London, Hughie in France and I was in Navan. I probably would have preferred London or France or somewhere nice and exotic," said O'Sullivan.
"We are all fairly grounded, we have a laugh and a joke about it. Hugh doesn’t talk much about rugby, I don’t talk about football and Mark doesn’t talk hurling. 
"It’d be more about what’s happening with the club or international rugby. We don’t be getting into it about ourselves even though we do trade off on little bits of training, S&C training skills wise and little tricks he has picked up and it goes the other way too. 
"Little things here and there. I have a background in psychology and likewise I’d use Mark as a bit of a sounding board for my mental preparation and I help them when I need it from me too.
"We always played everything. I played rugby in school, Mark played rugby in school and Hughie played obviously, he would have played GAA growing up. 
"Mark always got me out when we were playing and then Hughie we pass it on to him and he was out from a young age in the garden and that’s probably where you get the enjoyment. 
"We played everything growing up with county teams from a young age hurling and football and in schools I played with Belvedere at senior cup level and ended up getting run over by the likes of Dan Leavy and then decided it might be best to stick to the football,"
While Marjk has this weekend off, Hughie and Cillian will be back in action, but as far as Cillian is concerned nothing is more important than a win in Cavan on Saturday night for Meath.