High Hopes For Midleton After Encouraging Start To #EnergiaAIL Season

Now the County Cork club’s former captain has turned his attention to working on off-field matters as he steps into the PRO role this season.

Having made his senior debut for Midleton back in 2011, the 32-year-old has been a key figure in the squad for many years. Last year, however, proved to be his last season playing in the Energia All-Ireland League and rugby in general.

O’Sullivan has had issues with his neck for many years but still looked to treat the injury. Last season he sustained a couple of knocks, with one just before Christmas causing concern.

Seeking medical advice during the off-season, the injury was worse than feared and he was faced with a choice of spinal surgery or retirement, O’Sullivan explains why he chose the latter.

“I’ve had some neck challenges over the last couple of years, probably started about ten years ago to be honest,” he told IrishRugby.ie.

“I’ve been in A&E a couple of times with it. Nothing serious, nothing broken, but just challenged with the neck. And then in I’d say Octoberish time frame, took a bigger knock on it. And then I just couldn’t get it right, kept trying to play as you do.

“And then just before Christmas, I actually lost kind of the sensation in my hands and my feet. So I went into the hospital with that and all the scans, all that kind of craic, I played since, as you can imagine, did it again.

“So went for more scans, spoke to the neurosurgeon in August and he’s like look there is pressure on your spinal cord. You’ve got a couple of bulging discs here. It’s clearly not right.

“We can either have spinal surgery, which we wouldn’t recommend, but you can do it, and then play again. Do it and play again for a year or so, or you cannot play rugby and live a perfectly normal life. So I was like, ‘I’d rather not have the spinal surgery, thanks very much’.”

Being involved with Midleton has been part and parcel of O’Sullivan’s life since he was eight. Now the rugby boots and playing gear are swapped for working on the club’s social media platforms.

For the business consultant, just like when he first stepped foot in Towns Park all those years ago, he is completely new to the world of PRO (public relations officer) work.

Finding life on the touchlines more stressful than when he was playing, O’Sullivan admittedly found the transition quite difficult to settle into his new role at the club.

With a new set of challenges and responsibilities, he credits the people around him in helping him to adjust to the new position, including his wife Helena, whom he married in September.

“It’s tough because obviously there’s a transition sticking with being around. I’m the PRO now. I’m still involved in the club. I still chat with lads the whole time. I’m still involved with all of them.

“Watching is harder than playing to be honest, because there’s nothing you can do. You can’t influence it. So that’s nearly probably more stressful to be honest, watching the games and the lads.

“But transition is hard like, in terms of motivation to get up and go to the gym and a bit of training. Try and find something else to do to get me up and moving.

“You’ve got to fill that space, that adrenaline space as well, somehow. That’s the challenge. I started doing a bit of running, did a half marathon and all that craic.  It’s always something to do, it is a tough transition alright.

“I’m completely new. But to be honest, I have a lot of good people around me that are helping out. I’m more kind of pulling the strings or co-ordinating and then getting a lot of advice and support from people, including my wife.

“She’s in marketing herself, and then Fidelma Read is great for all the photographs, and pulling together a lot of the content then for Instagram and Facebook. So a lot of people around me are helping out alright.

There’s a whole different set of demands on you. It’s not just a case of, ‘oh, flicking something up on Instagram or Facebook’. You need to have the right content to go with it, the right messaging.

“Put it up at the right time, make sure it does conflict with something else you have planned, all that type of stuff. What I find from that point of view, promoting the club and being that person, is the fact I’ve been involved in the club since I was eight.

“24 years involved in the club helps me to understand kind of all levels of it really of the club, and what the wants and needs are and to be a link between the players and the committee.”

O’Sullivan’s last full season ended with Midleton avoiding relegation at the end of the 2022/23 campaign. He played a handful of times last year as they improved to finish fifth in the Division 2C table.

The new coaching set-up of Robbie Doyle as head coach, joined by Dan Walsh, Liam ‘Boomer’ O’Connor, Gearoid Collins, Gerard McIntyre, and Gerard Geary, as S&C, settled in nicely last season.

Now the group have worked hard in the off-season to get the right structures and systems in place, and have been rewarded with an unbeaten start to 2024/25. O’Sullivan believes there is a lot more resilience in the squad this year.

“Giving kudos to the coaching group. It takes a while to bed in, especially with two young coaches like Dan and Boomer, with all the experience they have as players and so on,” he explained.

“It’s still coaching. It’s a different environment. But I think kudos to them for continuing to drive on with the messaging they started last year and building on some of the good progress made as well as recruitments.

“They go hand in hand, and there’s a huge recruitment drive in the off-season as well to get some new players in and to build out that depth of the squad.

“Training’s only as good as the amount of players that you can get up there, and with that extra depth we have a lot more players coming in training, which really helps drive home messaging and improve how we’re performing.

“I think with the bonds the players have at the moment, that culture they’re building, there’s a lot of resilience there that two years ago might not have been there.

“Fair enough we had that draw with Belfast Harlequins away, but two of our matches have been relatively down-to-the-last-minute wins.

“Whereas two years ago, that might have gone the other way, but the resilience that the playing group have now is just second to none. So if you combine that with the continuous high level of coaching, I think we’re on for a winner.”

Hoping to continue their impressive run, the All-Ireland League’s third block of games sees Midleton hosting Munster rivals Bruff on Saturday afternoon. It is always a closely-fought encounter when these clubs meet, and they are far from strangers at this point.

Despite their contrasting fortunes to start the season, with Bruff currently ninth in the standings and yet to secure a win, O’Sullivan says the Cork outfit will take nothing for granted given their past meetings.

“You’ll get nothing easy against Bruff. We’ve played against them so many times over the years, and we know them very well.

“Even though we have a few new players in there over the last two years, they know that Bruff is never an easy match. We’re very similar clubs in terms of (being) community focused and to where we are even in terms of Bruff is probably similar distance to Limerick city as we are to Cork city.

“There’s a lot of similarities between the clubs, and it’s never an easy match for either side. It’s always tough, and the lads will know that going into it,” he added.