‘We’re going to enjoy it and give it a right lash’
Mulligan hopes his youthful side will flourish rather than wilt in the heat of battle.
“My team is only a young team. My biggest fear is the lads freezing on the day but I don’t think they will. That is the big worry though.
“I’ve a lot of confidence in how they’ll react but you just never know! It all comes down to the day. I’d prefer if this interview was 15 minutes before kick-off because then I could look at them and tell you if they were nervous!”
With the sides not facing each other in the league, Glencormac’s only experience of Newtown was a 3-5 loss in the Charlie O’Leary Cup – a match that the Glens twice lead in. The longer-serving members on the Glencormac panel will have painful memories of a battle with Newtown United B years ago but the ‘A’ team are a different class and Mulligan knows it.
“Mick Rooney, Ian Devlin and Simon Doyle would have experienced losing to Newtown in a cup final and league play-off a few years ago so believe me, I know all about Newtown! I was down on Sunday watching them in the Charlie O’Leary and they were very, very impressive. They totally dominated St. Peter’s and it is a massive task ahead of us.
“The reason we lost that game was that Newtown never panicked. They’re just so experienced. They never panicked at all that night and they were 1-0 down and 2-1 down but they hit us with three goals in 10 minutes and that’s the class of their team and that’s what we’re up against. But I’m glad that happened that night because it might stand to us.”
Something else that has stood to the Kilmacanogue club is knocking out two-in-a-row champions Ashford Rovers. They made the Wicklow League sit up and take notice that day and it was a long, long way since the Glens had to threat extinction to regenerate interest in their senior team a few years ago.
“When we beat Ashford Rovers that day (I started to believe). They’d won it the last two years and we were 2-0 up but we conceded a goal and had a player sent off and conceded a penalty - to have the confidence in ourselves to come back from that and win it at the very end, it was that day that I realised we were onto something.
“It was never really going to fold, we had to put it out there that it was folding because I don’t think the attitude was what it should’ve been. When you take away something, lads realise what they’re missing so that was the low point but a lot of lads kept it going that season. We had older lads togging out just to keep it going at the time and we’ve obviously moved on since there.”
In celebration on Sunday, Glencormac could well turn to Freddie Mercury to celebrate their status as champions but another of his hits – ‘Under Pressure’ – certainly won’t be applicable to the Division 1A outfit.
“Absolutely none at all. The pressure is completely 100 per cent on Newtown.
“They’ve been there and lost the last two years.
“We’ll be going there to enjoy it, it’s our first Wicklow Cup final ever and we’ll enjoy it but we’re going to give it a right lash.
“It’s been an amazing season with a possible league to come and as I’ve said; if we lose it, we lose it. The lads will learn from it but we’ll give it a good go.”