O’Sullivan sets sights on summer return

Cian O’Sullivan hasn’t ruled out making it back to full fitness ahead of Dublin’s Leinster SFC quarter-final following a shoulder operation - though currently that would look a long-shot.

The Kilmacud Crokes defender was forced off in Dublin’s NFL1 victory over Kerry over five weeks ago and has his sights set now on summer action.

He missed last weekend’s Dublin SFC victory for his club over Ballyboden St Enda’s and will also sit out their SFC clash next week against St Oliver Plunkett’s/Eoghan Ruadh (Thursday, Parnell Park, 8.15).

“You kind of get told a few different return-to-play times, from four months back to three months,” says Cian.

“I’ll just throw the kitchen sink at it in terms of rehab and see where I get to.”

Dublin’s Leinster SFC campaign begins against the winner of Offaly/Wicklow on May 26/27 and Cian says that date “could possibly be a bit too soon, but I’ll see how it goes over the next couple of weeks; there’s a chance it could be okay”.

Reflecting on his injury he adds: “I had a kind of ongoing problem for the last six months and it was just progressively getting worse.

“It never popped out, but there’s a labrum in between the ball and the socket of the shoulder joint and that was just all torn, so they’ve to go and repair that and stabilise the shoulder.

“It’s a very painful experience. It was agony, yeah, just when the shoulder is popped out.

“Then the physios came on and they’re able to just give it a slight, very gentle nod in the right direction and it slipped back in.

“It was a pretty innocuous collision, so I’d say it wasn’t going to take much to pop out.

“And the chances of recurrence without getting the surgery are pretty high, so it was best just to get the job done.”