U14s face Dublin on more than a wing and a prayer

Damian McCarney

England famously lost to lowly USA in the 1950 soccer World Cup 0-1. Legend has it that, given the score was coming from a teleprinter in Brazil, with deadline looming English newspapers assumed it was a misprint with a digit missing and reported the score as 10-1 to the team with the three lions on its shirt. Sadly that story’s just a myth, but wary of making an equivalent error, the Celt has to commence its interview with Mick Flynn by asking for clarification: did Cavan U14s really beat Tyrone 15-14 to 4-4?

“Yes, and they wouldn’t have got anything at all if we hadn’t changed the full team at half time.”
That’s not the only eye-popping score en route to Ulster glory – the Celt also has to check that Down didn’t score a single point against the Cavan girls in the Ulster semi-final.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen it done,” laments the manager whose longevity of career is matched only by his teams’ trophy haul. “They put their two half forwards back into defence. It’s crazy, at under 14 not letting them play... they might have got one point but they got nothing at all.”
Mick’s been at the head of the Cavan team since 2009/10, when the development squad was started. In that first season they entered teams in both the A and B grades, but realised they were spreading their resources too thin to compete in either. In 2010/11 they entered only the B grade, and promptly won it. For some reason they were made to defend their B title, as oppose to being promoted to the A grade.
“We didn’t get a satisfactory answer to that question,” he says. “It was actually because they didn’t think we were good enough to play in A.”
Undeterred they successfully defended their title in 2011/12 and were at last permitted to move up to U14A in 2012/13 which again, they won. Remarkably they haven’t tasted defeat in the province since – six consecutive Ulster Championship A titles.
Mick attributes Cavan’s complete dominance to one factor - organisation.
“What happened before ’09 was they were entering teams in competitions and went looking for managers two or three weeks before the competition. So they decided to get their act together in ’09, and since then we’ve seen what organisation can uncover.
“We see the girls believe they can hold their own at any level against anybody.”
A glimpse through the pen pics on these pages shows the geographical spread of the clubs which are contributing players to the squad. The success surely must feed back into the clubs, and Mick, who was in charge during a legendary era for Cnoc Mhuire when the Granard school won an astonishing four All Irelands in a row, believes it is paying dividends at college level too.
“If you look at Loreto’s success this year at the U16 and the minor, it has been made up primarily from the [Cavan] team that won the All Ireland U14 three years ago,” Mick observes.
For all Cavan’s provincial dominance, they have so far won just one All Ireland – beating Cork back in 2015.
 

This Saturday in Dunleer they will have to overcome Dublin to win the All Ireland once again - and they have a brand new jersey for the occasion sponsored by Declan Young of Casoria, as sported by Christina Charters of Crosserlough above. Given the size of the resources at their disposal, the Celt wonders if the Dubs, even at this level have an aura about them?
“Quite honestly it’s another county,” says Mick. “Obviously we are playing against a team which has by far the greatest population in the country, and they have huge numbers trying out.
“We beat Galway in the semi-final and they won the All Ireland last year and they were expecting to win it again this year. Actually, except for one or two little blips we could have beaten them quite comfortably.
“So we know that we’re pretty god – if Dublin beat us they will have a job done. We are not in anyway anxious about this at all. We could lose alright, but sure that’s always there – but we know what we have. We know what’s in that team and we know the strength that we have and that there is huge character in this team. Huge character.”
In that semi-final against Galway, their opponents cruised into a four point lead, and it wasn’t until the 15th minute before they scored their first. They were guilty of a slow start in the Ulster decider too. Are they focussing in training on starting with greater intensity?
“How do you train for that? We’re conscious of it. We do what we can, we do the warm up as well as we can but I don’t know how you prepare for that - you just hope that they won’t get a run at us, and even if they do, we know that we have the character to withstand that and look anything is possible.”
In a fascinating recent interview with Damien Donohoe, Mick revealed the impact of the serenity prayer on his players. The Celt asks if he has the courage to change the things they can?
“It’s about realising what you can control, why get upset about things you can’t control – you can’t control the ref, so why would you be getting onto the ref all the time? You can’t control certain things that go against you – make a mistake in a game: you kick the ball and it goes wide. That’s gone wide you can’t control that now, maybe you could have controlled it a little bit before hand but not now, so don’t worry about, get on with it, and if you get a chance again have a go again – don’t be afraid.”
This fear-free approach extends beyond football as far as Mick is concerned.
“These girls, they have to handle loss as well. So if they lose the game, they can’t be beating themselves up and saying, ’Aw I did this, I did that...’ Okay you got it wrong - that happens. What do you want? We’ll get an ice-cream, we’ll play again tomorrow. It’s as simple as that.”