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Rian O’Sullivan is off to Brighton.
A TRALEE Dynamos player has seen his hard work and talent pay off after he recently signed a four year contract to join English side Brighton & Hove Albion.
Sixteen year-old Rian O’Sullivan from Camp has just completed his Junior Certificate at Mercy Mounthawk, but there’s no time to rest up just yet.
This coming summer sees him make the short journey across the water to join up with the English Championship side.
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This has been a long-time coming for current left-sided player Rian, who has already played international football and has had trials with English professional clubs.
“He had a few trials in the UK before this. He had trials in Ipswich and he’d a trial in Liverpool,” said Rian’s father, Mike O’Sullivan (of Walsh and O’Sullivan Auctioneers in town) speaking to TraleeToday.ie.
“He made it onto the Irish U15 team, training under Colin O’Brien and he has been involved in the ‘Kerry Emerging Talent’ programme which you have to be involved in to play for your country,” said Mike.
“He has been on the international team for the U15s and the U16s. Last February there was a four nations tournament in Dublin featuring Austria, Czech Republic, USA and Ireland. He played well in that tournament against Austria and as a consequence of that, someone from Brighton & Hove Albion came to Tralee to watch him play,” he continued.
“He was brought to Brighton for a trial where he did quite well playing against Aston Villa as part of the trial, while he was over there for a week,” said Mike.
“He had interest from Brighton, Derby County and Reading, with Leicester City also showing a reasonable interest in him at a point. We finally negotiated favourable terms with Brighton which accounts to a 1 year YTS contract, a two year professional contract and a one year potential club extension for the fourth year,” said Mike.
So how is Rian feeling about all of these developments?
“He’s heading off on Sunday, with his contract commencing on July 1. The more that it grows closer, he’ll probably get a little bit more apprehensive about it. Hopefully everything will work out fine. He’s going to be staying in digs when he goes over and hopefully that will work out fine too,” he said.
And hopefully we’ll be seeing him on a ‘Super Sunday’ on Sky Sports in the coming years. Best of luck to him.
