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The Irish Sun
07-05-2025
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Owen Mulligan teases Lee Keegan over hilarious contrast in how their inter-county GAA careers ended
OWEN Mulligan's Tyrone career may have ended sooner than he'd have liked but he is able to laugh about it nowadays. In his early twenties he provided an exuberant presence in Tyrone's forward line that blended excellently with veteran peers Peter Canavan and Brian Dooher. Advertisement 3 Mugsy is one half of talkSPORT Ireland's new podcast Beyond The 45' Credit: @talksportireland 3 Mayo great Lee Keegan is the other co-host along with talkSPORT Ireland editor Luke Delaney who will chair each discussion Credit: @talksportireland 3 New episodes will drop every second Wednesday from here on out Credit: @talksportireland But for all of his ability, he didn't end up soldiering as long in the red and white as either of those two legends. Instead his time with the Red Hand came to a fairly abrupt end at the age of 32. After the conclusion of the 2013 inter-county season he had wanted to take a longer break before going again. That put him on a collision course Advertisement Read More On GAA But all these years later, the three-time All-Ireland winner is able to see the funny side of how the curtain came down on his inter-county career rather quickly. Discussing that adjustment period after your time at the elite level of Gaelic football comes to a close with Lee Keegan, he joked about how the Mayo legend did at least Initially, Keegan recalled: "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't tough because you're going back into daily life. "Our week would've always been structured between the gym twice a week, training twice a week and then a match on the weekend. Advertisement Most read in GAA Football "So you were essentially being spoon-fed. You show up at this time, leave at this time." "How do you get that feeling of chasing something really big again? 'It's a failure on the camogie association' - RTE GAA pundits don't sit on fence over 'no-brainer' skorts saga "That was probably the hardest thing I missed for that first year or two." Mulligan, 43, then quipped: "At least you had the chance to retire! You got to retire whereas I got the chop! Advertisement "I found out in The Irish News. They rang me to say 'Well Owen, any chance you can give us an interview about being dropped from the panel?' "I was like 'Are you serious?' But I was one of 12 who were given the chop. "I had said to Mickey that I wasn't ready to come back to training until Christmas but he wanted to start straight away. "So I said 'No I'll come back after Christmas' which he didn't take too well." Advertisement The discussion during the debut episode of their new podcast Beyond The 45' - made in conjunction with talkSPORT Ireland. Among the other topics dealt with include how the Westport clubman partly owed his hands-on marking style from his rugby background and how James Horan instituted a culture change in the Mayo camp. Additionally, Mulligan reflects on how the Tyrone-Armagh rivalry was akin to Scottish football's Old Firm in terms of intensity around the early 2000s when they were both vying for Sam Maguire. You can listen to the opening episode on Advertisement
The Irish Sun
30-04-2025
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Tipperary GAA legend reveals surprising difference between ‘pressure' of playing for club vs county
TIPPERARY legend John "Bubbles" O'Dwyer has explained why he felt greater pressure playing for his club rather than his county. The prodigious half-forward 4 'Bubbles' will be one half of talkSPORT Ireland's new podcast Beyond the 65' alongside Wexford ace Conor McDonald Credit: @talksportireland 4 New episodes of the fun-filled hurling show will be released every second Wednesday Credit: @talksportireland 4 Each discussion will be chaired by talkSPORT presenter Luke Delaney as all angles of the hurling season are covered Credit: @talksportireland He's now launched In He remarked: "I never would have gotten nervous for inter-county games, I'd have gotten more nervous for club games. "Because there's probably more pressure on you there. You're expected to run the show there y'know? Read More On GAA "But county games no. As Conor says, you have your work done by then and so matchday is probably the easiest part. "I'd say going up through minor and under-21 teams before senior that there's always some pressure there. "But the most pressure you feel comes from yourself. The manager or other players don't put any pressure on you at all really. "I never would've found any pressure only for club games." Most read in GAA Hurling The bulk of the episode focused on the extreme training regiments modern players are subjected to in pre-season to prepare themselves for the long season ahead. Interestingly, both men noted that there has been a huge increase in how demanding workloads have become over the past decade. RTE GAA pundit Enda McGinley reacts to Dublin vs Meath on The Sunday Game The virtual professionalism of inter-county set-ups where every session is classed as a red, orange or green in terms of intensity has trickled down to the club game too. On what exactly goes into one of those most severe red sessions, McDonald stated: "You're looking at running between 7-10km whereas with your orange it'd be 5-7km while a green is handy enough. "That's your Thursday night before Championship job. "And in red sessions that's tackling, running, hitting. At no point is it a conversational pace!" 4 McDonald and O'Dwyer agree that John Kiely's Limerick side have raised the bar at club level as well as inter-county O'Dwyer then chimed in as he emphasized this is all a relatively recent phenomenon. He remembered: "Around 2014 or 2015 this talk of red, orange and green sessions was absolute gibberish to us. "Now club teams are doing it. You have some clubs forking out seven or eight thousand euro for these GPS units. "It's crazy. And with that comes more pressure on the manager or coach because everything is tracked." The 33-year-old later acknowledged that there is definite value in being able to gauge your fitness level across pre-season and league. However, he did add a word of warning that he feels sometimes modern players are inhibited during matches by fretting about how much ground they've covered rather than playing naturally as the game dictates.
