Published: Wednesday, 15th July, 2009 10:44am

END TO END: No quick fixes - it's time for real action

That"s that then - another year over. A season of the sublime and, more often than not, the ridiculous. Overall, a sad year to be a supporter of the Cavan senior football team.

Aughrim on the worst evening of the summer was a fitting place to end what has been a forgettable few months. The body language of the players in the second half suggested that some thought as much themselves.

In a surreal twist, the theme tune from Rocky greeted the Wicklow team as they ran on out to the field. With the rain swirling around above their heads and swishing under their feet, Micko"s men thus warmed up to the strains of the familiar 'da da da, da-da da' while the Cavan team, for some reason unknown to their 100 or so drenched supporters, chose to wait until closer to the throw-in before emerging to warm up.

When the show started, it very soon became clear that Cavan, lacking a lead conductor or any virtuoso players, just weren"t up to it. In the championship symphony, we struck all the bum notes again.

Wicklow hit Cavan with everything, fighting, blocking and harrying for their very lives. They"d never seen the dawn break on the morning of a fifth championship match before and raged against the dying of that light.

Where, we wondered, was Cavan"s rage?

It wasn"t to be seen at the final whistle anyway - there were no tears, no recriminations with the officials (who, it must be said, made some baffling decisions), no punching the ground in anger and frustration.

The over-riding feeling, it seemed, was relief. Sure, there was disappointment but if we"re honest (more of which later), the buzz was gone after the Antrim game. The dreams were crushed, the season was dead and a rainy night in Wicklow certainly wasn"t going to make the corpse twitch again.

No true supporter wants to criticise players. The current panel and management have worked hard, of course, and Cavan folk hold their footballers in very high regard, as is evidenced by the generosity of sponsors and the average attendances at league matches, which were the second highest in the country in the league.

However, a rot of results has set in and the team has gone backwards in the last 12 months - of that there can be no question.

While neither year was exactly spectacular, narrowly losing to the likes of Dublin, Meath and Kildare in 2008 makes for a better form card than, let"s face it, comprehensive defeats to Antrim and Wicklow 12 months later.

It"s time to face facts. Talk that Cavan simply don"t have the players is a cop-out and needs to be dismissed out of hand. Man for man, Cavan can match most teams for ability. Where successive Cavan sides haven"t matched their opponents has been for honesty and heart.

It"s not an individual thing, either; it"s collective. Outstanding club and underage players often seem to become gripped by a malaise when they reach the senior set-up.

For whatever reason, they are not performing to the maximum of their ability in the blue jersey. A cancer has set in, a losing culture, and the whole system has been infected.

Without treatment, this will be terminal. There won"t be a recovery without immediate action and the cure, if it is to come, will arrive only when the cause, and not just the symptoms, are examined.

Scratch the surface and it all becomes apparent. The club game is the poorest in the province, our underage sides have failed and failed again and, through the way they have been coached or whatever, almost as a matter of course, possess outstanding individuals but lack the ability to think clearly under extreme pressure. There can be no other way to explain how so many talented minor and Under 21 teams have choked and lost big matches by the odd point or two. It"s not a coincidence, and it needs to be addressed urgently.

It"s all about honesty. Tom Carr said as much after the game, and he was right. It will take a frank assessment and an almighty effort to fix the problems in this county, from board level right down. There is no point in taking the quick fix of calling for the manager"s head after six months or slating the 20 players who lost last Saturday.

Let"s not kid ourselves. If we have reached rock bottom - and that"s a place supporters wrongly thought Cavan were in on several occasions in previous years - let"s take stock and fix the problems at the root. That means sorting out the schools, the club structure, the whole nine yards. If a limb is rotting, cut it off or replace it. The entire set-up in this county needs to be overhauled if Cavan are ever to emerge from under this giant shadow.

Carr urged the supporters to show patience and, to his credit, it is unfair to expect to challenge for titles in his first year in the job. However, pride needs to be restored. The manner of Cavan"s defeats in recent months have been unacceptable; for next season, a fit, disciplined team who are willing to bust a gut for the jersey is all Cavan supporters ask.

The current panel of 30 odd players represents, with a couple of high profile exceptions which are best left to be discussed another day, the best talent we have available in the county. With the right attitude, there is no reason why we can"t at least compete with the mid-ranking teams.

This bunch of players has the talent; Flanagan, Mackey, James Reilly, Johnston, Cullivan among several others are exceptionally talented players and would be the star turns in Wicklow, Antrim, Tipperary, Longford or Offaly, all counties who have comfortably defeated Cavan this season.

We need to see the best of our best players, which means laying a foundation and being totally honest in every aspect of our approach, from coaching and development to preparing our teams. That"s the winning way; that"s the Tyrone way.

Amidst the backslapping, the joyous whooping and hollering of victory, Mick O"Dwyer, wily as ever, summed it all up.

'We are still in the championship,' stated Micko, 'and that"s all that matters.'

Never was a truer word spoken. We, Cavan, are out, and that, unfortunately, is all that matters in the county this week. We always seem to be.

The Under 21"s gone at the first hurdle, the minors having left another one behind them. Even the fledgling junior side, for all of the positives of the initiative, were well-beaten. And now this. The time for talk is over and the time for real action is now.

It"s going to be a long, hard winter.