Owen Mulligan: My verbal battle with Francie

OLD RIVALS…Owen Mulligan and Franice Bellew battled it out on the biggest of stages

OWEN Mulligan has opened up to Kevin Cassidy in a fascinating Barroom tape interview in today’s Gaelic Life.

The series, which sees the former Donegal man talking in depth to some of the county’s biggest names, continued this week with a stop off in Cookstown.

In a wide-ranging interview, Mulligan discusses his disbelief at how his county career finished, his battles with Armagh and Dublin and the possibility of GAA players using performance-enhancing drugs.

In a lighter note, Mulligan recalls the one time he tried to engage in some verbal jousting with Armagh defender Francie Bellew.

“I tried to get a bit of verbals going with him in one of the matches in Croke Park by saying he was gorgeous but he just looked back at me, smiled and said ‘so are you.’ I was pretty happy with that outcome so I just left it,” said Mulligan.

The extensive interview is available in today’s Gaelic Life or in the online version here.