Early Career
O'Sullivan played for the Garryowen Football Club during the 1970s and 1980s, while teaching physical education, maths, and science in Mountbellew, County Galway. He also played Gaelic Football. In 1982, he played corner forward on the Mountbellew Moylough Gaelic football team that lost the Galway Senior Football Final.
He started his coaching career at a Galway club Monivea RFC before being appointed as a rugby development officer with the IRFU. He followed this with spells coaching at Blackrock College, (first as assistant, then as head coach) Connacht and the Irish Under-21 side. The Under-21 side won the 1996 Triple Crown, beating Clive Woodward's England.
After failing to secure a high profile coaching position in Ireland, O'Sullivan moved to America to coach the US Eagles. He was then appointed as the assistant coach of the Irish national side in 1999, and in 2001 as the head coach following the departure of Warren Gatland.
Read more about this topic: Eddie O'Sullivan
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)