END TO END: Gaels will be back but the aura of invincibility is gone

Paul Fitzpatrick Little did anyone know it at the time but Kingscourt Stars did the rest of the county a massive favour when they beat Cavan Gaels in the 2010 county final. It would be preposterous to say that that match was the beginning of the end for Cavan Gaels but, in light of their shock defeat to Killygarry last Sunday, it's clear that they're not the force they were, and, as we will see, haven't really been since then. They're not as consistent, in any case, and, it can be argued, not capable of hitting the same heights on any given Sunday. Because from 2007 to 2009, the Gaels were imperious in this county. They won three successive county leagues and three county championships. Their minors won the six too, league and championship. It appeared the run would never end. Look at their march to the senior title in the last year the club won it pre-Kingscourt. They positively routed Ballinagh and Crosserlough in their group, were 1-10 to 0-4 up against a decent Redhills team with seven minutes to play before easing up to win by five at the last eight stage and, after a sluggish start, beat Killygarry by ten points in the semi-final. What best highlights how far Cavan Gaels have fallen is the fact that 12 players who started last Sunday for Killygarry also started in 2009 - Patrick Galligan, Michael McGovern, Eoin Smith, Daryl McKenna, Andy McGovern, Brendan Murray, Paddy Lynch, Donal Thomas, Padraig Cahill, Ross Sheridan, Thomas Leonard and Martin Reilly all lined out from the start that day, while Damien Keaney came on both days. We bring this up not to denigrate Killygarry, one of the most committed and consistent teams in the county, but to highlight the fact that, refereeing grievances aside, that Cavan Gaels have slipped considerably. This wasn't a new-look Killygarry, full of county minor and U21 graduates and incomparable to the team of old. It was the same team. The Gaels, however, are not. For various reasons, a dozen of the 19 players who featured in that match in 2009 were not playing on Sunday - none of Eoghan Elliott, Darren Rabbitt, John Gurhy, Daniel Graham, Cathal Collins, Sean Johnston, Anthony Forde, Paul O'Donnell, Nicholas Walsh and subs Cormac Nelligan, Niall Murray and Pauric Smith. Barring Murray and Graham, who are both still in their early 20s, the other ten represent a core of players who are now in their late 20s and early 30s. Experience is irreplaceable and while the Gaels have hoovered up minor championships for over a decade, they still find themselves short. What has gone wrong? Well, we wrote before that the jury was still out on the younger players. Some of them haven't proven themselves to be as good yet as what went before - there's no shame in that. The loss of Cathal Collins has been cataclysmic - he was a leader, a rock on which so many opposition attacks perished. So, too, has been the absence of Sean Johnston, who walked away from the club in favour of St Kevin's of Kildare so that he could play county football for the Short Grass county. In previewing the 2009 county final, which the Gaels won at a canter, on these pages, it was noted that "the one Gaels man who may be irreplaceable, in his own way, is Sean Johnston - there is no substitute for that level of natural class". Nobody foresaw what would happen but it has come to pass. It's a safe bet that the Gaels would have scored more than nine points in 60 minutes of football had Johnston been on the field last Sunday. Even if he hadn't scored, he would - as DJ Carey has said when defending his own record in All-Ireland finals - "take watching". What has all that got to do with Kingscourt and that famous - or infamous, depending on what way you saw it - September Sunday in 2010? Quite a lot, actually. What Kingscourt achieved in stunning the Gaels - and the men from Terry Coyle Park are still bitter, still complaining about a match they lost by four points, having been out-scored by 1-9 to 0-4 in the second half - was to shatter their aura. Because Cavan Gaels had that in abundance. They were, it seemed, almost indestructable. Such was the strength of character in their team, their levels of preparation and the depth of their squad that even if another Cavan club had the talent to beat them, they would have needed massive reserves of mental strength to do so. It was commonly stated around that time that the Gaels - whose key men, such as Eamonn Reilly, Enda King and Cathal Collins (below, right), weren't regulars with the county team during that period - were better than Cavan. Your correspondent fell into the trap, too, writing the following in July 2010: "Are Cavan's best 20 footballers on the current panel? In the opinion of this writer, there are players on the Cavan panel, and even the starting team, who wouldn't make the starting team of our county champions Cavan Gaels." Maybe it was true; more likely, it wasn't. Regardless, it's an example of the aura that surrounded the champions at the time. They were tough and could win ugly but they were good footballers and could beat you that way, too. Either way, teams felt, they'd get you. We all bought into it, and many disliked the club for their hard-won success. They revelled in it, a siege mentality was created and with the production line churning them out, the future looked blue and white. Witness the championship quarter-final in 2010. Cuchulainns led by 1-5 to 0-0 12 minutes in. From there, they should have won but they just hadn't the belief that they could beat Cavan Gaels. Teams just didn't beat Cavan Gaels at the time. And then Kingscourt went and won it, and all was changed. The following season's league dropped us some hints but no-one picked them up. Ballyhaise took a point in May, before Redhills, recently promoted from intermediate, sacked the champions in their own castle. Castlerahan and Cuchulainns beat them twice in a week and while they won three league games and a championship clash in July, Ballinagh inflicted a championship group stage loss on the last day of that month. They didn't lack for motivation in the remainder of the championship, avenging both the Kingscourt and Ballinagh losses emphatically and trouncing a star-struck Castlerahan side in the final, but before the league was out, they would ship five goals against Kingscourt two weeks before that final. Glenswilly, first-time Donegal champions, then delivered a knock-out blow in the Ulster Club at Breffni Park. The malaise continued this season when they drew twice and lost twice in 13 league matches, one defeat a home loss to a fired-up Drumgoon. The Maudabawn men are no bad team but outplaying the Gaels in Terry Coyle Park would have been unthinkable in the past. Now, 20 points from 26 is still a commendable record but this is Cavan Gaels we're talking about. Suddenly, teams like Drumgoon, Cuchulainns, Redhills, Belturbet, Ballinagh and Killygarry feel they can beat take on and beat the mighty Gaels. Like Tiger Woods, the talent may still be there - or much of it, in any case - but the veneer of invincibility is gone. Cavan Gaels will be back - of that there is no doubt - but, like Tiger, it looks like they won't dominate like they did. Whether a new team steps into their shoes remains to be seen. This weekend will tell us more...