King quietly confident Breffni men can prosper against old rivals
Paul Fitzpatrick
Nobody saw it coming. When Cavan midfielder Gerry Keyes sent over a point to seal a draw with Kerry in the dying seconds of the 1955 All-Ireland semi-final, the Breffni men had every reason to be confident on their journey home.
The Kingdom were rattled, the Blues, with three All-Irelands in the previous nine seasons, had pedigree and fancied their chances of adding a fourth.
They had won 20 of the previous 25 Ulster senior finals, mining five All-Irelands in all, but from that day, the teams’ graphs verged in different directions.
Kerry walked the replay, winning by 4-7 to 0-5, on a day when, incredibly, three spectators, independent of each other, dropped dead in Croke Park. They would win another 19 titles; Cavan have now gone 61 years without so much as a final appearance.
The flood slowed to a trickle and, by the end of the 1960s, it dried up altogether. A solitary Ulster win in 1997 — as we write, the only one in 44 years — raised hopes of another All-Ireland but Kerry, inevitably, took care of business in the semi-final.
It has taken 16 long years to return to Croke Park but the Breffni corpse has finally started to twitch and, says 1997 captain Stephen King, the buzz is back among the drumlins.
“A lot of these young players are used to success, the same as in ’97, and there has been a tremendous attitude change, they really, really want to fight for each other. They have a system in place, they are as fit as anybody and I’m not surprised they’ve done so well,” says the Killeshandra Leaguers man.
Cavan emerged from nowhere in 1997 under Martin McHugh, and King sees parallels with this season.
“Where that 1997 win came out of was, there were a few experienced players around who hadn’t won anything. In ’94, ’95 and ‘96, a bunch of players emerged who had been successful at U21 level and got to an All-Ireland final came on to the senior team. Then in ‘96 there was another successful U21 team and they added to our team in ‘97. We, as the older players, actually gained from the experience of the young players in winning Ulster titles.
“That success helped breed success into the seniors and I’d say it’s the same now. We’re after winning three Ulster U21 championships and a minor championship and a lot of the current senior players were to the forefront in that.”
The cause of Cavan’s demise has been debated for decades among Breffni diehards and the general consenus is that a decline in population, proportionally higher than other Ulster counties, was the primary cause and a vicious cycle subsequently set in.
King believes the lack of a strong club structure has hindered development.
“We weren’t as competitive at club level as the likes of Kerry. Divisional football is tremendously competitive, one Kerry club won the Senior Championship with an amalgamation of 11 clubs. I’m not saying we were willy nilly but we weren’t as competitive, one club has generally dominated and dictated things at any give time, which is not ideal,” says King.
The loss in 1997 is one he still rues.
“It was a huge disappointment. It was so difficult to win Ulster at the time, there was no back door, and we knew that if we were ever to get back there again we’d have to win the Ulster again. It was a game we really let go, we knew leaving Croke Park that we had left it behind us, we had a chance to beat Kerry and we didn’t do it.”
The county are finally seeing the fruits of a far-sighted development squad system and a decision, taken in 2010, to keep the U21 and senior squads separate. Suddenly, where the county always had a decent supply of footballers, they now have a stream of them with the priceless winning mentality.
But the acid test arrives on Sunday.
“I fancied Kerry all year, they a have new manager, they are being very quiet and they have some new players, like James O’Donoghue, who I feel will be a big loss. Everybody is shouting about the Dubs, and rightly so, but Kerry are coming in under the radar and they know how to win All-Irelands better than anyone,” says King.
“But if Cavan can get on top early on and get a bit of a lead, like Monaghan did against Donegal in the Ulster final, it will leave it for a tight contest. If Cavan get a good start, Kerry will have a lot of work to do to win it.”