'I don't think I've ever been as excited or motivated'

JFC final preview

When Arva won the Intermediate Championship in 2016, their captain Johnny McCabe was interviewed on the pitch after the game. One of the players he name-checked was Ciaran Brady, referencing “the amount of football” he had played in the previous few seasons.

Fast forward seven years and Brady, who now captains the Arva team, has fitted in a lot more for club and county. Yet he doesn’t feel like he has run up too much mileage. Recently, presumably recovering from another battle, Brady ran into county colleague Martin Reilly and asked the Killygarry veteran how the years were treating him – because, well, Ciaran himself feels as fresh as ever.

“I was unfortunate to pick up an injury back in 2021 against Longford in the league and it has given me a few problems since and affected other areas of my body,” Brady told the Anglo-Celt at last week’s launch.

“Only recently I was talking to Martin Reilly in the pool in the Cavan Crystal and I was asking him had he felt he was getting older because I’m 29 and to be honest I don’t feel any bit 29, my body doesn’t feel it yet either. I’m feeling as good as I have been at the minute and I’m ready for a lot more road ahead.”

Arva have been on that road for a while now; 10 years ago, they lost a Junior final to Kill and a core group have stuck with it since. They’d be forgiven for dropping the effort levels, one would think, but Brady dismisses that out of hand.

“Funny you ask that, I’ve obviously been doing a lot of thinking over the last week since we got back to the Junior final again and I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited or motivated to be in a final. I suppose when you’re young, you might not just appreciate it as much, when I was younger starting out with Arva we just hit a good run of form and we knew nothing but finals there for four or five years.

“We had a few gap years then when we had nothing for various mitigating reasons. We had lads gone to Australia, some freak injuries and coming from a small area, we have a small pool of resources so it’s hard to have enough lads coming in (to replace the absentees).

“I’ve been telling the young lads here in the club to realise that we’re in a really good place at the minute, football goes in cycles and you see it in all clubs, even professional clubs. The good times only last for a certain amount of time and you have to enjoy them.

“I’m as motivated and excited as ever to be playing in a junior final.”

Brady knew there was a good chance Arva and Knockbride would cross paths and he has been impressed by Saturday’s opponents.

“Firstly, we both had to earn the right to get to the final and we both did that. We had different paths, we didn’t meet each other on the way and we both took care of our opposition.

“As the games passed, you were kind of seeing how well they had done. We know they’ve won everything they’ve played this year, the Ulster League, Division 2 league, they’ve gone brilliantly, I think they won a junior league as well so they’re in a really good place up there.

“We did understand that we’d have to earn our places in the final and the semi-finals went according to plan for both teams so we find ourselves where we do on Saturday evening.

“I think a lot of their players have played at underage level in Division 1 so I’ve no doubt that next year in Division 1 they’ll be well capable of taking it on, they have a huge squad, a huge pick up there, great numbers by all accounts and as I said, underage experience of playing at a high level in Division 1.

“As I said, I think they’re a very good team and they’re here to stay around for a while yet. They have a good manager in Aidan McCabe who they all seem to be very pleased with and he has them all pulling together. They’re in a great place themselves.”

Losing last year’s final by a point really stung. In the months that followed, he mulled it over.

“I think it’s only natural that you’d be very hurt and it does take a while to get over. It makes the winter a lot longer when you lose a final, there’s a lot of time to reflect and it’s a long time around again till February when you get the boots back on again.

“We had a bit of a fresh approach this year with a new manager and new management team and he’s brought in fresh ideas. We’ve had three lads graduating on to the senior team as well and all three are there or thereabouts for starting on the senior team and they’ve given us a huge boost.

“And you do need that conveyor belt of lads coming through because it freshens the whole thing up. You can’t beat a bit of youth and a bit of flair, it’s hopefully showing in a good light for us as well.”

Few footballers in Cavan have played in, and won, as many finals with club and county as Brady, so he is well-placed to advise his younger teammates about how to approach the big day.

“It might be a cliché but it is just another day, okay the build-up is different but I think that everyone should embrace the build-up of the final and the community getting around the team because they don’t come around often.

“In life you have more losses than wins and that’s just the nature of it, there can only be one winner. At the end of this year, across the country, there will only be three teams in Ireland who will finish on a win in the All-Ireland clubs finals. That’s three out of how many clubs in the whole country?

“So you have to embrace it, you have to enjoy it, you can’t let the occasion get the better of you but unfortunately it does happen for some people and that’s sport as well. You hear of big game players and you just hope next Saturday we have lots of them for Arva.”

When his involvement with the club finishes, be that after this weekend or later on, he will take some time off and get ready for another spin with the county under new manager Raymond Galligan.

“When I heard Raymond was going for it first, I thought he had a great chance. He was a bit more than a captain and a leader within our dressing room, he had a lot of experience from his younger days playing county football, he had a break from it and then he came back in a different role as a goalie.

“For a lot of trainings, he would have been at a distance doing his own training and the work he put in to make himself a top goalie in the county just shows I think how he will do in management. He has got experience around him and I think Ray will be well able to steer the ship in a good way for Cavan.”

So, he’s definitely committing again? The answer comes without hesitation.

“Absolutely. We have to keep going to try and win more, isn’t that it?” he chuckles.

The grind continues.