'Our main aim was to to put down a marker and win the league' - Cullen

Gavin Cullen had one aim for his Cockhill Celtic side when they made the return to the Inishowen Junior League after a decade in the Ulster Senior League. His aim was to win the league title, but to go the entire season undefeated was not something he expected. 

Needing only a point to seal the Jackie Crossan Premier Division title in their first season back in the Inishowen League, Cockhill overcame Greencastle with a 2-0 victory at the weekend thanks to Lee McColgan and Corey McBride's goals. 

There may be one game remaining in the league, and no doubt Cullen and his side will want to see the season out as the ‘Invincibles of Inishowen’, but the Cockhill boss says, clinching the title is now a huge monkey off their back as they go in search of silverware in various cup competitions. 

One of which is the FAI Junior Cup, which Cockhill will play in next month when they aim to be the first Donegal side in five decades to win a national trophy. 

“It’s great that we finished the league with a 100 per cent record, but we still have more games to play.” Cullen said. “We have the semi-final of the Donegal Signs Cup this weekend against Culdaff, who no doubt will come to our ground and give us a good game. 

“Then all roads lead to the FAI Junior Cup final next month, so, there’s still a lot of football to play before we can take it easy.” 

Even after dropping down from the Ulster Senior League last year after winning 10 league titles in-a-row, the Cockhill Celtic boss said his main aim on a return to Junior football was to set a mark out and win the Inishowen league. 

“I said it time and time again, the league was always the trophy we wanted to win,” he said. “It’s a real honour that we’re in a National Cup final, but I don’t think you can depend on cup competitions for silverware because it’s all about what happens on a single day. 

“I believe, and always will believe that the best team wins the league, and I think we’ve proven that by staying undefeated the entire league season. Once you win the league, I think you have that monkey off your back, and we can now focus on our cup competitions.” 

But Cullen acknowledges that even by winning the league, six points ahead of Buncrana Hearts, each with a game still to play, the season was no walk in the park. 

“What we have to say is that winning the league is not an easy thing to do, and it showed this season. Even our last match against Greencastle, I thought they were excellent and caused us an awful lot of bother, it was a really tight game, but, in the end, I think we were more clinical and took our chances,” the Cockhill manager said. 

“But in hindsight now we can look at real key moments in the season. We played Carndonagh very early in the season and we had two men sent off. We were 2-1 down and ended up winning 3-2 with nine men, so those are standout moments that were crucial in our team’s season and showed the fight our boys had every game to win points. 

“We’re pushing on every year to be better. We have a young side, but the level of consistency is brilliant from these lads. We have now won 11 league titles in-a-row after winning 10 in the Ulster Senior League, so we knew when we dropped down to junior football that we were the team everyone wanted to beat. 

“We were seen as a side that was on a pedestal and we were probably the biggest game of the season for opposition teams, so every game was a dogfight and you had to step up to the plate to win every point.”