Cullen eager to put ‘Battle of Omagh’ behind him

DUBLIN star Brian Cullen is determined to put the fallout from the ‘Battle of Omagh’ firmly behind him and return to concentrating on football.

The Skerries Harps club man was one of seven players whose suspensions were overturned by the CAC last week and Dublin manager Paul Caffrey wasted little time in taking advantage of that controversial decision.

While the other three Dublin players cleared - Ciaran Whelan, Alan Brogan and Kevin Bonner - only featured as subs for last Saturday’s trip to Cork, Cullen captained the side.

The fallout from the CAC’s decision to uphold the players’ appeals on a technicality has been considerable, with GAA President Sean Kelly lamenting the fact that the players chose not to accept their punishments.

Said Cullen: “It’s really not an issue for me. As far as we were concerned, the appeal was out of the players’ hands. It’s all in the past and I’ll just concentrate on the season ahead.”

The first objective for Cullen and the Dubs is to qualify for the semi-final of the NFL, a target made all the more difficult by last weekend’s defeat.

Cullen isn’t worried that their old Achilles heel of losing tight games is back after Cork’s storming finish.

“That’s really the only time it’s happened so far this year. We had a close game against Tyrone as well and we took the points from that.

“Last year we shaded a number of close games, but I would still be confident that we have the ability to do that.”

Next up is Sunday’s journey to Fermanagh where two points are crucial if they are to hang onto the coat-tails of Mayo and Kerry in Division 1A.

“There’s no doubt Fermanagh are heading in the right direction,” said Cullen. “They seem really competitive. When we played them in the league a couple of years ago we drew and found them very difficult opposition. We know we won’t get anything easy off them up there.”