‘We left a few All-Irelands behind us’ says Tyrone’s Owen Mulligan

Following his retirement, Owen Mulligan lamented that he did not win more with Tyrone.

Having spent the autumn of his playing days with Fulham Irish in London, far away from Sam Maguires with Tyrone or All-Ireland club titles with Cookstown, ‘Mugsy’ has a few regrets:

“It was getting too hard. I probably played a year more than I should have with injuries and stuff. I’ve a bad back these last four or five years, and hips are starting to give in as well, through probably injections I had playing for Tyrone during the glory days, just to have a quick fix out on the pitch. I think they’ve come back and haunted me over the last few years.

“I should have hung them up after we won the London Championship two years ago. The beast got the better of me, and I played on when maybe I shouldn’t have. That’s the reality of it.”

While he won three Celtic crosses with Tyrone and two All-Ireland intermediate titles with Cookstown Fr Rock’s, he knows he feels he could have achieved more.

“You always think about the ones that you lost, not the ones that you won,” he reflected. “We definitely left a few behind us.

“Maybe 2004 was the main one, probably due to Cormac McAnallen dying. It was a big factor. But we used that as a crutch. Maybe we shouldn’t have used that as a crutch. We used that as an excuse. It was a massive, massive blow to the county. Not just as a footballer but also as a lad, he was a super lad.

“Other years as well, players weren’t buying into it, and I was one of those as well.

“The wheels came off the wagon a couple of years – partying too much and having the craic, you sometimes find that you’re not getting on and you just kind of pull other boys with you.

“We were team-mates but we were friends as well. If we went out drinking together, you’re covering each other’s back. Probably a few of the players did that more often and when managers find that out it’s not really a good thing.”

Nonetheless, the 37-year-old can look back on his career with pride, and picked out two highlights:

“2003 when Peter [Canavan] went up and lifted the first All-Ireland. And the first time we won the Intermediate All-Ireland for Cookstown. We never did that before. We had always come close to winning championships and things like that. But to actually go up the steps with your teammates who you grew up with, was special.”

Paddy Power have revealed their GAA Ambassadors for 2019, with recently retired Kerry football star Darran O’Sullivan joining a squad of existing Paddy Power News columnists including Tyrone great Owen Mulligan.

Source: Read Full Article