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Playing at second row Mullins, a multi-talented young sportsman who had also played inter-provincial cricket with Leinster while growing up in Clontarf, scored a try on a team that featured future Irish internationals Ollie Campbell and John Robbie.īut the following day a Corn na Cásca game against Sligo set him on a different path and within months he had won his first All-Ireland senior medal just as he was turning 20 and Heffernan’s revolution was sweeping through the GAA.īroad shoulders, towering presence, flowing blond locks, Mullins cut a distinctive look on a football field at a time when the game was drawing support from less traditional areas in the capital. He was only 19 when he made his inter-county debut, playing for the Leinster U-19 rugby side on the day before against Ulster in Ravenhill. “As he was being taken off I wanted to run over and say ‘now Mickey Joe Forbes, the hardest wee mon in Ulster, you’ve just met the hardest wee mon in Leinster!”

There wasn’t a stir,” recalled McCarthy in ‘Magill.’ “I don’t know what happened but Mickey Joe went down. Minutes later his huge frame, ball in hand, was hurtling towards the Tyrone defence and Forbes, bravely, stepped out to make contact. Mullins sensed what was at play and undertook that day to do the sorting. “He is much smaller than me,” recalled McCarthy in the interview, “and I know that if I touch him I’m going to get sent off.”Ĭonsultation with the Dublin dug out brought advice to keep running but a policy within at the time was that if someone was ‘messing’ with one of their players it was up to someone else to sort it out.

John McCarthy’s much-told story about an incident involving Brian Mullins and a Tyrone defender, Mickey Joe Forbes, in a 1978 league semi-final perhaps best captured the essence of Mullins.įrom the off Forbes, who had been marking McCarthy, had been constantly needling the Dublin corner-forward digging him in the midriff and reminding him emphatically that he was “Mickey Joe Forbes, the hardest wee mon in Ulster.” ‘Magill’ was chiefly a political commentary at the time but such was the fascination with that Dublin team, the characters who shaped it and how they developed their careers away from football that it was deemed worthy of the front cover and some 38 pages inside all those years later.Įach interview brought a unique insight into the minds and movements of the protagonists and there was an honesty and sharp recall provided, helping to paint a vivid picture. For a landmark feature on the Dublin football team of the 1970s, ‘Return to the Hill,’ sports writer David Walsh interviewed all 15 players and the manager Kevin Heffernan, weaving a remarkable story in the January 1989 edition of ‘Magill’ magazine.