Published: Wednesday, 14th July, 2010 2:14pm

END TO END: Honest hard work needed to right these wrongs

by Paul Fitzpatrick

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The manner of Cavan's defeat will have galled the Breffni fans.

There is no shame in losing to Cork - make no mistake, the Rebels will win this All Ireland - but there is shame, real shame, in losing the way Cavan did.

From high up in the nosebleed seats of the Pairc Ui Chaoimh press box - so high that the tea was cooling at altitude - it was easy to see that Cavan lost their shape and, in some cases, their desire very early on here.

Cork sauntered out and kicked a few balls in the warm up but their body language told its own story. They knew they would win this one, and win it well, and it was a case of getting it over with.

Cavan's garish fluorescent training tops, each one emboldened with individual players' names, was about the brightest part of their day. Certainly, they didn't illuminate when the match began.

No player goes out to play poorly and no individual deserves personal criticism in print. What is wrong with Cavan football goes a lot deeper than a handful of players failing to perform on a warm, misty evening down by the Lee.

If one good thing emerges from this debacle, it is the following: the myth that Cavan are a good team disguised as a poor one through underperformance has been buried. At last. Pre-match, the feeling among the handful of Cavan supporters was that Cavan, whisper it, could pull it off.

The general consensus among a surprisingly high number of supporters to was that Cavan would rattle Cork, that we would keep it tight and, in practically every case, that 'this is the sort of game we'll play well in'.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. This delusion has to stop. We have to recognise our standing in the game and only then, when we accept that, can we look to build.

The current buzz phrase of 'we are where we are' relating to the recession is particularly apt for Cavan footballers. We now know for sure that our senior team are the weakest side in Ulster and are in the bottom five in the country - we have lost to Division Four teams in last year's championship and this year's, and the first genuinely good side Cavan have met have just outscored us five to one.

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different outcome. We, as Cavan supporters, are almost all insane then. Maybe we're football-crazy. But it's a certainly a madness of sorts.

How wouldn't it be? How, on any known or unknown form, could we expect this Cavan team to beat or even come close to beating a magnificent Cork side?

All of that said, as is so often the case, it was the manner of Cavan's defeat which hurt most. The team wasn't united. Again, no individual deserves blame - the whole culture is wrong. Good players from strong clubs don't want to wear the blue and white. Look at the young players who gave their all for the blood and bandage of Cork last weekend and compare the situation to Cavan's, where players can take or leave the county jersey.

Players are coming and going from the panel, some joining weeks before the championship, others quitting on the eve of it. One exceptional young player quit the panel because he wasn't picked to start a match. Christ Almighty! When did the famous jersey become so cheapened?

Why won't the best footballers in the county answer the call? If they are afraid of failing, that's sad, but if they look down on that Cavan jersey, it's shameful.

Compare our team to Louth's. The smallest county in Ireland, which also has a very serious soccer problem (that's a joke, ground-ballers) are this morning Leinster champions in all but name because they got the best from their best footballers, all pulling together.

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. There are players who don't stand out at club level being asked to step up and perform at a higher grade. It's ludicrous.

That's not a criticism of the players themselves - they have the courage to give it a shot and should be commended for that. The current panel aren't blameless - there is certainly a lack of unity there - but the whole football culture in the county needs to be addressed.

We have a 30,000-seater stadium that has never been close to full, and for which cash-strapped clubs are forking out, yet our county senior team gets embarrassed and humiliated in the championship. The priorities, clearly, are - or at least have been - all wrong.

The common answer that 'we haven't got the players' is a cop-out. What we haven't got is complete and utter honesty in our approach. Nothing was ever won by cutting corners, in any sense.

Sure, we don't have an abundance of tall, skilful footballers like Ciaran Sheehan or Paul Finlay or Sean Cavanagh but they are the rarest of gems - we have plenty of rough stones which could be polished up.

All the while, we continue ticking the boxes, turning out development squads, investing in facilities and routinely panicking in tight matches at underage level. Madness. Again, there is something seriously wrong.

Is the board fiddling while Rome burns? Is there any accountability whatsoever there? Players and managers are held accountable - Tom Carr, for example, will not start next season as Cavan manager.

There is some great work being done in clubs and at county board level by some tireless and committed individuals.

However, everything should be geared towards success on the field - that's the priority. This is a crisis and Cavan football needs real leadership. Action, not talk. Honest hard work, on and off the field, not going through the motions.

Hopefully chairman Tom Reilly and his new administration will provide it. Tom is an honourable man who was elected on a strong mandate of uniting clubs and board for the common good and he is a person who is well capable of doing so.

At the time of writing, it hasn't been confirmed, but looks certain, that Tommy Carr and Cavan will part company.

Supporters won't be sorry, if the truth is told. The appointment of Carr as manager was a disastrous move and in recent times, his demeanour has suggested that he wanted out. Personally, Carr is a thoroughly honest, decent man and good company but as manager of this bunch of Cavan players, he has failed. We are worse than we were when he took over.

Regardless, the winds of change need to start blowing before the Cavan tradition dies altogether.

One youngster at the match repeatedly asked his clearly-angry father, whose level of annoyance seemed to be growing in direct proportion to the amount of rain that fell on him, "but Dad, why are we so bad"? There's no simple answer to that one, son...

• As an aside, this writer had a hard job to infiltrate the Rebel base at all! Stewards not accepting officially-issued GAA press passes is more common than you would think but Commander Frank Murphy himself accosting them and demanding ID marks a new departure! What next? Journalists having to smuggle themselves in on the team bus? Watch this space...