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It was late on a Saturday night in 2022 in the small Irish town of Dingle, population 2000, when Oisin Mullin realised his mate had gone back to their hotel room with the only key to the door.
He had only one option.
Turning on his heel, Mullin walked back into Paul Geaney’s Pub and Restaurant, one of the 50 pubs that Dingle boasts to rejoin the rest of his mates enjoying a stag night.
Little did he know, a posse of about a dozen Geelong players, including Dingle local Mark O’Connor, had also lobbed into town that night.
Oisin Mullin celebrated his first goal with excited teammates Credit: Getty Images
They had just watched O’Connor, their premiership teammate, help his town win the 2022 Kerry Senior Football Championship quarter-final at Austin Park, Tralee, about an hour away.
That Cats crew checked in to their accommodation and at about 10.30pm headed out to Paul Geaney’s, the sort of place that shows sport from around the world on screens and has no closing time.
The clock had ticked past midnight when one of that crew recognised Mullin, whom O’Connor knew due to his reputation as a future great of Gaelic football.
Mullin had already decided to join Geelong for the upcoming pre-season, having decided against it nine months earlier after COVID-related delays had him feeling he was too far behind to step into the AFL program in January.
But his decision to return wasn’t at that point widely known. The Cats group only knew him as the guy who hadn’t arrived.
No matter to his future teammates. A roar went up, and Mullin was dragged into the group.
Stefan Okunbur, Esava Ratugolea, Zach Guthrie, Tom Atkins, Francis Evans, Jack Henry, Mark Blicavs, Sam Simpson, Brandan Parfitt, Gryan Miers, Toby Conway and O’Connor enjoyed the night with their soon-to-be teammate as he bounced from conversation to conversation.
“No one was really being like, ‘hey, mate, come to Geelong’,” Blicavs recalled. “We were all just having a night out. It was good.”
Blicavs’ recollection is better than Mullin’s, who admits his mind wasn’t quite on the job when he bumped into the Cats contingent.
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“I’m not necessarily sure I remember too much of it because I probably met them about one o’clock in the morning,” Mullin laughed.
“It was a very random interaction, but it was quite nice to meet a few of them. [We had a] chat, and they all seemed like great guys.”
The winner of GAA’s young footballer of the year before he left Ireland, who has been dubbed “the Nick Daicos of Ireland”, is sure to be more locked in on Friday night when he takes on whatever huge job the Cats have in mind for him in the preliminary final against the Hawks.
The obvious call for the man who shut down Lions star Hugh McCluggage in the qualifying final is finals specialist Jai Newcombe. But Karl Amon and Jarman Impey could also be candidates if the Cats want Mullin to disrupt Hawthorn’s rebounding weapons.
“I don’t make it too complicated. It’s just getting told who I am going to and just have a look at their previous games and how they set up and what positions [my opponent] might move to because I guess it happens a lot with tags,” Mullin said.
“Teams will try and move around a bit to break the tag or pull apart a system a little bit, so it’s just kind of getting a little idea of where [my opponent] might end up, but nothing too overly complicated. It’s just kind of ‘shut them down’.”
The County Mayo star played with Kilmaine, a village in his county, as a defender. He became used to man-on-man contests in Gaelic football, perhaps explaining why he can play AFL with the stoic desperation his compatriot O’Connor shares.
Since his arrival in Geelong, he’s built upon the trust he began to establish over those few late night beers in Dingle to become a key to his club’s fortunes, playing his fourth final and second preliminary final in just his 42nd match (Friday night is Geelong’s 50th final since 2000).
His parents Jarlath and Noreen are in town to watch the finals before heading home, safe in the knowledge their son is establishing a sporting career to make the distance between the two countries bearable.
Mullin has made life tough for the game’s best players in 2025 as Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters can attest. Credit: Getty Images
They even arrived in time to watch his first career goal when he threw the ball on his boot in the first quarter against the Lions, joining the “first goal with your 208th kick” club. His mum had to show him the vision of former Cat and Irishman Zach Tuohy celebrating in the KRock radio box as he is on a self-imposed social media ban for 20 weeks, a challenge he has set for himself alongside teammate Conway.
As usual, the Cats have found a player without giving up draft capital, the impromptu recruiting pitch to Mullin easily topping the infamous tracksuit-wearing effort to lure Travis Boak from Port Adelaide back to Geelong in 2012.
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A few beers were all it took to convince Mullin the Cats were his team, even if he denies that was the clincher.
“I think that story got a run as to being part of the reason why I got here. I’m not sure it had too much to do with it,” he said.
Whatever the reason, he has been embraced by town and club alike as he attempts to help the Cats into another grand final – less than three years after a chance meeting set him on a course to a preliminary final.
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