Published: Wednesday, 25th August, 2010 5:00pm

Andrews and Hyland set for return to Cavan

Val Andrews.

September 11, 2001 - Manhattan smoulders in the dusk as, 3,000 miles away, a footnote to history plays out at a Cavan County GAA board meeting.

There is unease among club delegates - representatives of the grassroots of a notoriously-demanding county - about the senior team management, a think-tank which had led the team to within three points of Tyrone in an Ulster final that summer.

Bainisteoir Val Andrews, a man famously described as "so laid back that the fella behind him is horizontal", doesn't hang around to plead his case or defend his record, announcing his immediate resignation and turning the car for home (Tralee at the time, incidentally).

The parting of the ways (which effectively spelled the end for Andrews' selectors - one of whom was Lacken clubman Terry Hyland) prompted barely a paragraph in the national print media that week, falling as it did on that ill-fated Wednesday.

Fast forward eight years and eleven months and you can be sure that the events of last Monday night's meeting will, this time, generate plenty of headlines; if the current power-brokers in Cavan football have their way, Andrews - and his former lieutenant Hyland - will be back in charge, this time on an even footing as joint managers.

The county executive, a 16-person management committee which steers the Good Ship Breffni, has proposed Hyland, who has enjoyed success at junior and U21 level, as joint manager along with Andrews and, subject to ratification by the county's 41 clubs (40 football clubs and one hurling), they will take up the reins.

Having stated that there would be no white smoke until September, board chairman Tom Reilly has sprung a surprise with this move, but it appears to have been generally greeted well among supporters, appealing as it does to those looking for a locally-based manager and those favouring an 'outside man'.

Hyland managed Lavey to a county Intermediate title in 2009 and went on to coach them to the provincial decider last December, a trick he repeated with the Cavan U21s and the juniors earlier this year.

He served as a selector with Louth during Andrews' tenure as Wee County manager also.

This proposed appointment, should it go through (and that is by no means a formality given the extreme importance, as Reilly has stressed, of "getting this one right"), is sure to provoke plenty of interest nationally; Andrews has maintained a high profile in the game through his successful involvement as manager of the Leinster Interprovincial Cup squad and pops up in the media as an analyst now and again.

A lecturer in IT Blanchardstown, he is a laconic character, a non-drinker who won two Sigerson Cups with IT Tralee and has been heavily involved with the development of underage football in Dublin.

Andrews managed novel amalgamation Drumbride as a one-off gig in the county SFC last summer and in an interview with The Anglo-Celt at the time, he recalled his time in charge of the county side and spoke of his fondness for the county.

"It was going well, after I left they got to a league final and we had been in an Ulster final. They were good lads, they did well. What happened, happened," he recalled. "We were underdogs and gave it a lash. In the 63rd minute we were one point behind."

Cavan haven't been in an Ulster final since and there was a sense from Andrews of unfinished business.

"Even ten years on or whatever, I'd still say 'did I do half-time right, did I say the right things... And then you keep going back, at 63 minutes gone the game was still there. But that's the way it is...

"You know, you can always say ifs or buts or maybes. It just didn't happen on the day. I don't have regrets. But an Ulster final that you don't win... You know, they're a great occasion, an occasion to be cherished because you don't get to them that often."

Cavan football was on a high when Andrews last took charge - the county was holding its own in Division One of the league and had been Ulster champions as recently as 1997. Should the Ballymun Kickhams man, and his Cavan colleague, get the nod from the clubs at tomorrow night (Thursday's) specially-convened meeting, the rebuilding job will be one of the toughest any Cavan management have ever undertaken.