Captain Shalvey 'fit and ready' for Lory Meagher final

Hurling

Kevin Óg Carney

He’s recently claimed an All-Ireland Macra na Feirme award but it’s an all-Ireland gong on the hurling front this Saturday afternoon (3pm) at Croke Park that Enda Shalvey craves most of all.

The Cavan senior hurling captain could talk for Ireland but in the bowels of Kingspan Breffni, Shalvey plays the role of a ‘safe pair of hands’ to a tee.

Scoops are strictly for the hoped-for post-match celebrations on May 31, 2025.

Dispatched by Cavan’s think-tank to talk the talk with the local media, the multi-championship-winning Cootehill Celtic hurler channels his inner politician in being quizzed about this weekend’s Lory Meagher Cup final against New York. Loose lips and all that . . . .

“Listen we’ve been aware of all the noise that there’s been about New York but we’re just concentrating on focusing on ourselves and looking at the final as being just another game,” Cavan’s resident number 3 declares.

“A few of us travelled down to Mullingar to see them (NY) beat Monaghan (in the semi-final) and, listen, they’re a good side, no two ways about it but I feel we can take positives with how Monaghan ruffled their feathers for a good part of the first half.

“To be honest though, we prefer to concentrate on ourselves and what we can do to effect the game in the way we want.”

This Saturday’s fifth tier decider can’t come quickly enough for Shalvey, he moots; even though he could do with another wee while to finally put to bed a niggling hamstring injury which has disrupted his training and match fitness over the past three weeks.

Thankfully the 28-year old proclaims himself “fit and ready” for the fray and is glad to confirm that his exit from the field in the first half of the last game (against Leitrim) was “purely a precautionary thing.”

Shalvey is the personification of positivity as another landmark day for Cavan hurling beckons.

Indeed, any hurt he may still be feeling from being part of the Cavan team that lost (1-17 to 3-26) out in the 2021 Lory Meagher Cup final to Fermanagh at Croker has long since dissipated.

“You’ve got to park your disappointments and move on,” Shalvey says.

“We just didn’t turn up that day against Fermanagh. I think we were overawed by the occasion to a certain extent but a lot of the fellas who were there that day are still on the squad and that should stand to us this time around.

“With no disrespect to lads who were there in 2021 and who aren’t on the current panel, I think there’s more quality in the present day squad; there’s more strength in depth. Some of the in-house games we have are as good as championship games.”

“They say you have to lose one (final) to win one so hopefully that’s the case for us this year. We’re four years on as a squad and I think that if we all bring our A-game to the table we can do it this year.”

With twenty years of hurling under his belt, Shalvey knows all too well that the best laid plans don’t always come to fruition on the playing field. But he insists Cavan “are now where we wanted to be at the start of the year.”

Winning the Lory Meagher Cup was always the priority, he maintains, and “we’re now only a matter of days away from getting a chance to fulfil our ambition this year.”

Relegation from Division Three of the National Hurling League this year wasn’t what the doctor ordered for Cavan but the blues’ captain insists morale or confidence in the squad wasn’t damaged.

“You’d have to say that the feeling after the league was overall one of disappointment even though we had some good scalps in beating Sligo and Wicklow and getting so close to beating a London team who’ll be competing in the Christy Ring final this weekend.

“Results didn’t go our way in the league and it was disappointing to drop back down to division four but we drew a line under it and then turned around and put in four convincing performances in the Lory Meagher Cup so operating in a higher level in the league definitely stood to us.”

“They say you have to lose one (final) to win one so hopefully that’s the case for us this year.

“The best performance we can produce has yet to come and no better time for us to produce it than on the biggest stage of all this Saturday.”