John O'Sullivan

speaker

1,312 appearances 8 recordings 2 series first heard Mar 2026 last heard 11 Sep

John O'Sullivan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 3.

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The Counter Ruck: The Irish Times Rugby Podcast · The AFL comes for Irish rugby · 31 Jul 2026 podcast

It's something that was engaging for him and there's a financial aspect as well.

There would be no comparison between what he's going to earn in Australia and what he would have got for an academy contract in Leicester.

Yeah, I think if you grow up wanting to be a professional rugby player, you're kind of linear and single minded that that's what you want to pursue.

If you grow up playing a number of sports, that's where I think that the attraction is.

So Noah played a lot of Gaelic football and obviously was very, very good at Gaelic football as well, because Dublin also came back to him and asked him, would he be interested in playing Gaelic?

seniors are pursuing his Gaelic football career but he couldn't do it in tandem with what he was doing in rugby terms because he was involved in the sub-academy in Leinster and then obviously he was involved with the Irish 20s so I think it was the fact that he had a broad spectrum of sporting interests and wanted to challenge I think it's a little bit of the nature of the person as well he wanted to challenge himself like it's not a massive hardship to go to Australia for a few years live out there experience a professional sporting lifestyle and culture um

And he's 20 years of age, so he can always come back.

And that is something that Peter Smith said to me when we were chatting about it.

He was saying like, you know, the door will always be open for Noah if he comes back or wants to come back.

And that's something obviously that will stand to him.

Like Noah's, when I was talking about his pace there earlier on, like he won school sprint when he was in fifth year in Gonzaga.

He won

the 100, 200, 400 in fifth year and sixth year in school.

So, and he was kind of late developer in that aspect of things, but that would be something that would be a standout feature quite apart from his footballing skills is that really top end pace.

it sounds like it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to to lose him i think it's yeah i don't think that there's a huge amount that that necessarily rugby did wrong to lose him i just think he's a young guy who was who likes the challenge of of uh who likes challenges and obviously the initial one would have been uh rugby and galley football together at school then galley football playing for the dublin minors then rugby again would have taken priority and now he's

this is an opportunity and i suppose if you're if you have australian rules clubs coming looking for you when you're in fifth year in school um you have to have a little bit about you and that would be a little bit of a head turner uh i think for most young people who are 16 17 years of age um i would say that the this part of it will be lifestyle as well i think that is something and also he's young enough to come back and play it's not as if he's going to

forget all he knows about rugby or for that matter gaelic football but certainly not he's not going to forget about all he knows about rugby because he goes away and plays those rules for two years

No, I don't think so.

I think you're right.

I think it's an easy cross-pollination between, hence the series, the international series as well, between Aussie rules and the composite rules game, if you like, Aussie rules in Gaelic football.

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