Opinion: The team who taught Cavan how to win again

Cavanman's Diary

Back in the 19th century, nostalgia was classified as a mental illness. If that is the case, we are all suffering, especially in the days of lockdown.

On newspaper sports desks around the country, the last few months in particular have seen the R number – R, in this case, is for ‘reminiscing’ – multiply daily. With little in the way of live sport to cover, much of the written and audio output has been focused on the past, remembering old times, famous wins and even losses.

In my eyes, there’s no harm in that. It’s important to remember, in a sporting sense, where we have come from. Without that context, it’s impossible to evaluate what comes afterwards, on or off the pitch.

It was Alan O’Mara who reminded me last week via text that 10 years had passed since Cavan U21s won the Ulster final on rainy night in Brewster Park. I could not believe it.

The context of that victory is all-important. In the months and years that followed, Cavan supporters got used to underage success.

The Minor Championship was claimed just three months later for the first time in 37 years; the U21s would not lose again in Ulster until 2015; that loss, to a last-minute Ryan McHugh goal, was softened somewhat by the fact that St Pat’s had ended a 43-year wait for the MacRory Cup the day before in Armagh.

Truly, they were days of plenty but, before the 2011 breakthrough, the anniversary of which we celebrated on these pages last week, things were about as bleak as they ever were for Cavan football.

No Ulster title at any level had been secured since the 1997 Ulster final success and the senior team were idling along like a ship that had lost its way. It was nobody’s fault in particular; somehow, though, a bad culture had contaminated the senior team.

And if there was a brand associated with Cavan underage teams, it was that they were invariably very talented but somehow always conspired to find a way to lose. The raw ingredients were there but, when all was thrown into the mix, the result was foul and inedible. It was hard to swallow.

From 2009 to 2012, for whatever reason, the seniors began to bottom out. There were good players but not enough of them; mired in the lower reaches of Division 3 of the league, a breakthrough seemed a long way off.

Alan O’Mara recalled last week how the U21s had been beaten in 2009, narrowly by Armagh, having barely got together before the game. A few meetings and kickarounds was how he described it and it left the nagging feeling, “what could we do if we prepared properly?”.

The following year, Terry Hyland (above) took over as manager and brought in an outstanding backroom team, which included the likes of Anthony Forde, Ronan Carolan and the late Joe McCarthy, a genius when it came to analysing opposition. They were highly motivated and the group of players they had at their disposal mirrored that determination to make a change.

They hammered Down by 15 points in the first round before seeing off Monaghan with a late David Givney score from outside the 45 in the semi-final, after which the supporters swarmed the pitch, exultant at reaching an Ulster final – any Ulster final.

As I’ve written before, the sniggers in the press box which greeted that sight have always stayed with me. “Look at these eegits!” the laughs seemed to say. But Cavan people knew what that meant – after years of oppression, they had a shot at making it out.

In the final, Donegal, managed by McGuinness and led by Murphy, proved too strong but there wasn’t much in it, really. The game turned on a harsh decision to penalise Brendan ‘Bud’ Fitzpatrick for lifting the ball off the ground (he didn’t); Donegal broke down the field and got a goal.

It was sore but, still, such talk smacked of a moral victory and we had seen too many of those before. Reminiscing with Terry Hyland last week, I asked him was the 2010 team, man for man, actually superior to the one that came afterwards and he summed it up when he said “they hadn’t learned to win”.

It would take a while for the seniors to follow the U21s’ lead. They were in bad shape at the time.

In 2009, Cavan had been beaten out the gate by Antrim in the Ulster semi-final, a late goal taking the ugly look off the scoreboard. Then, in 2010, they had lost at home to Fermanagh in the Ulster Championship before coming from eight points down to defeat Wicklow at home in the qualifiers.

After that game, famously, seven players were interviewed on Northern Sound. The players deserved their recognition after a courageous comeback but, in hindsight, it is faintly embarrassing; scraping past Wicklow, with all due respect to them, was celebrated like it was a major milestone win.

That was the height of Cavan’s ambition back then and they were summarily put to the sword when losing by 20 points to Cork on a rain-sodden, miserable day by the Lee a week later.

Changing the culture

This was the backdrop against which the U21s achieved their win in 2011. Viewed 10 years on, it becomes much clearer just what a phenomenal achievement it was for a Cavan U21 side to reach an All-Ireland final given where football was at in the county.

Speaking before Cavan played Dublin in the All-Ireland SFC semi-final last year, former Dublin star Barry Cahill, whose family links of course are in Castlerahan, talked on these pages about the transformation in Cavan.

“They’ve sort of changed that culture that was in the team because looking at Cavan down through the years, the quality of player to me was never an issue within the county.

“I always felt that there was good quality players from watching club football, seeing guys play Sigerson. And you’ve always heard about a lot of these good minor and U21 teams - and not even the teams that won the Ulster titles.

“I remember hearing down the years, say, Down might have beaten Cavan minors or Tyrone beat the U21s in the first round after extra time and those teams go on and win the All-Ireland, you know, so there always were good groups of quality players.”

While only two of those 2011 U21s went on to win Ulster senior medals last November, it would be unfair to say that Niall Murray and Gearoid McKiernan were the only ones to last the course. While the players on the 2011 team would have felt that they would be the ones to go on and do it at senior level, in hindsight, coming from where Cavan had been, that journey was too much to ask of one group.

Their role was to be the trailblazers, to stop the rot. They had the footballing ability but as Cavan players and supporters had come to know so well, that was only one part of it – and it wasn’t the biggest part.

They weren’t the best Cavan team ever sent out but none was ever gutsier. They were, most of all, the team who showed that Cavan could beat Donegal and really could beat Tyrone and they took the supporters on a journey which ended up in Croke Park. That’s where it all started, this latterday revival, and they will be remembered warmly by supporters for ever more.