Cathal and Harvey Cullinan.
CULLINAN cousins Harvey and Cathal will occupy roles in Newmarket Celtic’s defence as they bid to win a twentieth Clare Cup title.
Harvey captains the side from centre-half with Cathal proving his worth at left back in his debut season with the club’s first team.
“Everyone has been friendly and welcoming,” observed Cathal of his reception into the side. “We’ve been crying out for left backs since Darren left and he’s there, we’ll see how he’s filling the boots,” interjected Harvey.
For Cathal to get to play side by side Harvey has been enjoyable, “he is one of the better players I’ve played alongside. I can get up the line and not worry too much about tracking because Harvey is there”.
He was always confident the chance to play at this level would come. “It’s something I always expected would happen, I’m a confident guy, left back is an in-demand position so it has worked out”
A Plumber apprentice, Harvey this year is captaining the side, a role he admitted is challenging. “It’s been difficult, I wasn’t really expecting it, obviously it was great to have Hayzo who was missing at the start of the season, it’s tough to be honest when you’ve a lot more older lads around”.
As part of the Cup winning side of twenty five years ago, Cathal’s father Brendan will be among the Celtic icons introduced to the crowd at half time. “It would be a bit embarrassing if we didn’t get to the cup final with them being out there, it’ll be cool for him to be out there, I don’t really know what they are doing,” revealed Cathal.
Having represented Sheffield Utd at U18 and U23, Harvey’s return was a key reason behind Newmarket winning the FAI Junior Cup in 2023. “When I first came back, it was more to enjoy my soccer, I’ve definitely done that and we have had great success”.
Reflecting on his time with the Blades, the twenty two year old admitted, “it was definitely enjoyable and definitely hard, it was obviously disappointing because you want to go there and make it and I guess I didn’t”.
He continued, “To win the FAI was pretty special and to look back on it, it was a great time. It’s always hard to repeat it and keep going. We let our standards drop at the end of last season and the start of this season but I feel we are building now again and are on the up. A few lads myself included needed a kick up the arse to bounce back”.
It has taken time for Celtic to clock this season, nineteen year old Cathal reflected. “We weren’t really clicking at the start, we were on each others necks, once we started playing more for each other,stopped giving out to each other on the pitch things started to click”.
He confirmed that Harvey wasn’t one of the vocal critics at this stage while also throwing shade, “No he doesn’t say much, he’s only captain because he was in England”. Harvey replied, “Cathal has finally found his voice which is good to be fair”.
Dual commitments are a difficulty for Cathal as he attempts to make a breakthrough with the Newmarket-on-Fergus senior hurlers. “I’ve been doing it for a while, it is a bit disappointing that I can’t make training for both all the time especially with this being my first year on the senior panel if things went the other way I could have been more hurling than soccer but the soccer choose me first I suppose”.
Having memorably kicked points with the sliotar when representing the Blues, Harvey said there’s no planned hurling return for him, “I had a few requests from Peter Power alright”.
He is pleased with the manner in which they rallied from a poor start to the season. “We were down in the dumps at the start of the season and we’re delighted where we are now. Other clubs would have packed it up after a few bad results like we had but we stopped blaming others and blamed ourselves”.
“Eoin (O’Brien) has always been brilliant, he sets a high standard, no one is differennt if you put in he work he will reward you”.
Though Harvey may not have lined out with his uncle Darren as much as he’d like, he’s not raving about having TUS mechanical engineering student Cathal as an alternative but won’t complain either. “I won’t give him any compliments like but I’d obviously want the best for him as family”.
