Owen Mulligan Recalls How Lie Over Soccer Game Led To Scary Run-In With Tyrone Star

Looking back at the all-conquering Tyrone side of the 00s, it's fair to say that there were no shortage of big personalities among Mickey Harte's panel.

There were some immense leaders in the group, with the likes of Peter Canavan, Chris Lawn, and Cormac McAnallen among some of the finest leaders in the GAA at the time.

Of course, Owen Mulligan was a big personality in another manner. His larger than life persona both on and off the pitch made his one of the most popular players among supporters around this period, but it also landed him in hot water with his teammates on occasion.

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Owen Mulligan may have been a bit of a rogue during his time with Tyrone, but even he was afraid of getting on the bad side of a few of his teammates during this period.

Speaking on talkSPORT Ireland, he recalled how a lie about the reason behind his absence from a Tyrone training session back in 2003 led to a scary telling off from teammate Chris Lawn, who used to drive him to sessions around this time.

It was some of the most brutal training we ever did. We were flying fit and those boys were pushing you, but they would soon call you out if you were f'ing about like.

I remember one day, we had a street league back home, a bit of soccer. I used to travel up with Chris Lawn (to Tyrone training). It was great craic, but he would tell you straight down the line 'quiet the f*****g mouth'.

I said to Chris one night that I'm sick this night, but the soccer boys were giving me a lock of pound. It was say £50, which was not bad money back then, it was alright.

I think bagged one (goal), but I didn't realise it was in the paper. Chris Lawn pulled up the next day, this was on the Thursday.

He was like 'how are you going, are you over the sickness'. I went into this whole spiel about what was wrong with me, that I was vomiting all around the place.

He f*****g swerved the car over and he goes 'never you f*****g lie to me again in your life, we have something special going here and you're going to f it up'.

After that day I said right, that was the end of that. That's what you call a leader.

I s**t myself. The veins were coming out of his neck. We never spoke the whole way up to training or the way back down again.

Anyone who saw Chris Lawn in action for Tyrone would quickly realise that he was a man that you would not want to get on the wrong side of, with this incident teaching Owen Mulligan a memorable lesson.

The motivation tactics used by those players certainly did the trick, with Tyrone going on to win the county's first ever All-Ireland in 2003.