Mulligan itching to prove doubters wrong

After a poor season, Eoin Mulligan was being written off — now he’s back. Brendan O’Brien spoke to him.

REPORTS of his demise were, it seems, greatly exaggerated. A month ago, Eoin Mulligan was yesterday's man after a season where he had failed utterly to leave the starting blocks.

With his trademark bleached hair, Mulligan's performances whether good, bad or indifferent tend to be more heavily scrutinised than most of his colleagues. And he's copped his share of flack so far this season.

The league came and went, largely passing the young joiner by. His loss of form wasn't helped by a couple of minor injuries. By the time the Ulster final swung around his stock had sank so low that he found himself warming the bench, a fate he had to endure again for the replay.

"I've had a very up and down season. It wasn't looking good for me," the 24-year admitted. "I was sitting on the bench. It was definitely getting frustrating but I can't take it away from the lads. They were keeping me out and doing Tyrone proud but it was a bad time there for a while."

Mickey Harte never lost faith though and the Cookstown man has played at least a cameo role in every one of their nine games this summer. For the qualifier against Monaghan he found himself restored to the first 15 but it was 'the goal' in the drawn tie against Dublin that finally jump started his season.

"Maybe that goal against Dublin set things off for me and I've just taken it on from there. Things happened to go right. A kick of a ball can make or break your season. I've just been working on my fitness, working on my ball skills and it's come right. Hopefully, I can continue that into the final now as well."

Despite his struggles earlier in the year, his tally of 2-17 coming into the final leaves him as Tyrone's second top scorer in the championship.

In a sense, it was the timing of his travails rather than the dip in form that was the problem. Last year, so many of the panel struggled to match their standards of 2003 that it was the collective rather than any individuals who came in for criticism.

Mulligan had no such troubles in 2004. If anything, his stock was on the up. In 2003 he hit 1-15 in seven games. Last year he got 1-23 in six. When Mulligan did lose the golden touch earlier this year he found himself riding out the storm on his own.

Maintaining the hunger with an All-Ireland medal in your pocket was a difficult ask for him personally and the team in general. "It definitely was. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard. There's a danger of going out training and not trying quite as hard."

Because of his fun-loving reputation, he found his troubles on the field being explained by his reputed lifestyle off it. Mickey Harte and Fr Gerard McAleer were repeatedly hearing tales of Mulligan on the tiles, even on nights they knew perfectly well he was curled up in his own bed.

Unless he has added bilocation to his list of talents, then rumours of his nocturnal habits were more often than not just that. Win on Sunday and a whole winter of craic will open up before the entire panel. Until then, he has no qualms about imposing a curfew on the social life.

"All the lads will tell you that I love a bit of partying but, when you're playing in an All-Ireland final, everyone knows what they have to do you and I'm no different.

"The sacrifices are all worth it, especially when you have a bit of silverware in your hands or your coming down the road into your home town and there's fellas on the side of the road in their 70s or 80s crying their eyes out. Sometimes you wonder why you're playing at all, but you know at times like that, that it's all worth it."