Mullahoran man managing Cavan in New York

By Paul Fitzpatrick at Gaelic Park, New York

Cavan NY manager Barry Dalton believes Cavan can take pride in the progress they have made in New York despite suffering a second successive Senior Championship final defeat at Gaelic Park.

The Mullahoran man was understandably disappointed after Cavan lost out to Sligo in Sunday’s decider but, looking at the bigger picture, he feels the club has come a long way from where it stood just five years ago.

“Disappointed. Second year to get to the senior final so it's disappointing,” Dalton said.

“But when we look back where we started five years ago, we only had a handful of players. The Cavan club here was nearly gone. It's one of the oldest clubs in New York, it and Kerry.

“We didn't want that to happen so there's a few of us, myself, Micheál Smith, Jake Brennan, Ronan Cooke at the time, got behind the wheel and we started to get young Cavan players back involved.”

The rebuilding job quickly gathered momentum. Cavan returned to Intermediate level and won the Intermediate Championship and League as well as the seven-a-side competition in Rockland.

Promotion to Senior followed and they reached the county final in their first season back at the top level last year. This season, they returned to the decider only to come up short against Sligo.

“We just didn't take off like we thought, maybe nerves and stuff like that, but in general as a club we're going in the right direction.

“I'm disappointed but more so for the lads because they work so hard all year and there's so much put into it here.” Dalton, who is assisted by fellow Mullahoran men Brennan and Smith along with Dromore’s Conor McNabb, stressed that playing Gaelic football in New York brings challenges which do not exist to the same extent at home.

“New York's a rat race and anyone that lived here would tell you that.

Trying to fit sports in along with work and stuff here, it's difficult. We don't have a home field.

We rent a field and we try and get everyone together there.

“In fairness, we have about 40 players here and every one of them are very committed.

“You could have a two-hour commute here and you turn around in the house, get your gear and get back out the door again. It's easy for people to say, ‘I'll not bother this evening,’ but they don't. In fairness, every one of them is very good.”

What makes the club particularly important to Dalton is the strength of its Cavan identity.

The vast majority of the playing group are either from the county or have close family connections to it.

“Ninety per cent of our lads are all Cavan.

They're all from the county of Cavan. The American lads we have with us, their background is Cavan – their parents, their mother, their father.

“So as a whole, we're like 90, 95 per cent Cavan background in New York here. There's not another club like that here. Not another club.

“It's the love of the county. I'm a proud Cavan man and a proud Mullahoran man.”

For full coverage of Cavan New York's SFC Final, pick up this week's Anglo-Celt.