Pub meeting ‘wouldn’t have hurt’ in swaying Mullin
IF Oisin Mullin was still on the fence about making the trip to play AFL, a chance meeting with his future Geelong teammates in a Dingle pub sealed the deal.
The dashing defender from County Mayo had agreed to leave Ireland and play with Geelong in 2022 before pulling out and staying home.
The Cats kept in touch with the athletic prospect through player development manager Mark Worthington and Mullin had shown interest in making the move in 2023.
On October 8, Mullin was out in Dingle on a bucks party for Gaelic player Rob Hennelly when he coincidentally bumped in a large contingent of Cats players, who were in Ireland to watch Mark O’Connor play for his home club.
It’s unclear whether a couple of pints of Guinness shouted by the Cats contingent got Mullin over the line but Geelong list manager Andrew Mackie said he would be “happy to pay them back” if one of his players greased the wheel.
“It never hurts (Mullin running into the Cats group), our guys present themselves so well, they are a great bunch of guys, they handle themselves well and are easy to talk to so I have no doubt it wouldn’t have hurt,” Mackie said. “The way it was described to me was that Oisin felt straight away that after the initial conversations at the start of this year that he was interested in coming out and didn’t think it was quite the right time. It was on his mind from then on and he didn’t want to live with any regret.”
Things moved quickly after Mullin committed to the Cats late last month and he arrived in Australia on Tuesday and was training the next day.
“It was great to see him out there (on Wednesday) kicking the ball and getting used to it all and getting to know his teammates,” Mackie said.