Gowna lose grip on golden opportunity

By Paul Fitzpatrick

You could sense it coming, couldn’t you? We’ve all seen this movie before and we all know how it ends. A Cavan team build up a lead, the opposition launch a furious comeback and the response, a spirited rearguard action, isn’t strong enough to suppress the artillery.

The Last Post sounds as, ears ringing, we mournfully sift through the wreckage of another calamitous collapse.

Gowna’s second-half implosion against Crossmaglen was hard to watch. One could see it happening, just like the Cavan minors against Tyrone in the Ulster semi-final earlier this year. They, too, were ahead by double figures.

They say bravery is contagious; if that’s the case, panic is too. Did Gowna panic? Yes, they did and it’s understandable.

In the first half, Gowna were in a flow state and showed, in front of a national television audience, just how good they – and by extension, Cavan teams - can be.

Ryan Donohoe’s well-taken goal early in the second half restored their 11-point lead and, right then, it was hard to see them being beaten. The thought struck, in fact, that this may have been the best-ever performance by a Cavan club in this bear-pit of a competition, or certainly in the conversation.

And it was – until it wasn’t. What changed? Pressure, which is hard to define but easy to recognise.

Someone once described pressure as the difference between walking a plank suspended two feet off the ground and crossing the same one 20 feet higher. The plank doesn’t change but the consequences of a misstep do.

Early on in the match, it was manageable but Gowna found themselves hunted and, eventually, cornered.

Crossmaglen sensed vulnerability, squeezed the Cavanmen hard and wouldn’t let go. Gowna, perhaps not helped by the ease with which they coasted through the county championship, lacked the wherewithal to break Cross’s momentum, to put them on the back foot.

They couldn’t get their hands on the ball at midfield (Oisin O’Neill said afterwards that his side won 10 kick-outs in succession) and on the rare occasion they did, they tended to give it away cheaply with sloppy errors.

There are a number of factors which, combined, make this loss so galling. Conditions were perfect for Gowna, Cross was a prized scalp, this was Gowna’s third crack at Ulster with this squad.

A win would have broken down the psychological barrier and would have sent the Cavanmen into a semi-final against a patched-up Edendork side who are running on fumes since winning their maiden Tyrone title in a dramatic replay. It truly was a golden opportunity – a home draw, a fully-fit squad and all the rest…

While it’s gutting for Gowna, it is a setback for the whole county. Conor Brady, who has carried himself exceptionally well as captain and did so again in the fractious aftermath on the pitch on Saturday night, made the point last week that Gowna wanted to win for Cavan too.

It will soon reach a point where there is no active footballer in Cavan who has enjoyed a win in the Ulster Club Championship. Ronan Bannon, amazingly, is still the Gowna sub goalie and played when they beat Clontibret in 2002 but otherwise, there aren’t many.

The last match a Cavan team won was the semi-final replay in 2017, Cavan Gaels defeating Derrygonnelly. A handful of the Gaels players who lined out that day also featured in the Cavan SFC this year but otherwise, that’s it. That is a serious problem for the county.

We purposely didn’t lead with the refereeing here but there is no doubt Gowna were hard done by.

The last free awarded, which led to Rian O’Neill’s dramatic winner, looked soft in the extreme. In fact, there were several harsh calls against Gowna in the second half.

While not all would secure a conviction in a court of football law, the charge sheet is quite lengthy. Tiarnan Madden clearly had his jersey pulled under a kick-out on 35 minutes. Two minutes later, Seanie Hartin appeared to be fouled, although not as blatantly. Another two minutes passed and Ryan Brady was pulled back. And again, on 41 minutes, Conor Casey was pulled back by two players.

On 55 minutes, Casey was possibly fouled twice in one move. A minute later, Ryan Brady was pushed in the back contesting a kick-out and Donohoe was pushed in the back as he bent to pick the ball up.

There was another on 62 minutes, and then the controversial late call which had social media aflame.

Some of these, naturally, are debatable - some were 50-50 - but all went against Gowna and taken together, they indicate that Cross got the rub of the green.

It was probably as egregious, overall, as some of the officiating at the Crosserlough v Kilcoo match two years ago, which saw three of the visiting side handed black cards and one, county man James Smith, sent off on a second yellow without being shown a first yellow! A source in the club later revealed that the Ulster Council acknowledged the error in writing thereafter but by then, the shouting had died down and Kilcoo were gone into the next round.

We must remember, though, that Gowna were awarded a goal which was clearly illegal. Conor Madden was in the square when he diverted it home and it should’ve been ruled out.

Of course, the decisions late in the game are always magnified but a goal in an Ulster Club match is enormous. Two of the four quarter-finals at the weekend were decided by a point and another went to extra time.

In fact, had the various Cavan champions scored one more goal, the county’s representatives would have only been beaten in the first round of Ulster on two occasions since 2016.

So, we have to acknowledge how that decision went Gowna’s way and that it was no small thing. We also have to say that having brilliantly built up an 11-point lead, Gowna should have won – refereeing decisions can tilt a match but not to the tune of a 12-point turnaround, although little incidents can of course lead to bigger ones.

And Cross did not win in a vacuum, either – they were exceptional in the final 25 minutes and the winner itself, regardless of the circumstances, was sensational.

Losing once to an injury time free worked short, as happened Gowna against Naomh Conaill three years ago, was unfortunate; but for it to happen twice was careless, regardless of the ref’s choice of language.

The debate post-match was over whether he said “last play”, as Cross believed, or “last kick”, which Gowna are adamant was the case.

Regardless, Rian O’Neill should have been more closely marked.

All in all, it amounts to a loss so disappointing as to be sickening, but when players and managers talk about learnings – as we bemoaned on this page last week – that is what they mean.

Experience is the teacher of all things. It won’t feel like it but Gowna will be a better team now for having lost last weekend.

And it takes time. Castlerahan lost three county finals in a row before they were ready to win and people called them chokers. They then won back-to-back Senior Championships and Division 1 Leagues and silenced all doubters and any such chatter.

Kilcoo won their first Down SFC of the modern era in 2009. They dominated the county thereafter, yet it wasn’t until 2019 that they were crowned kings of Ulster, later adding an All-Ireland.

There are endless other examples.

Gowna have proven themselves an outstanding team and look well positioned to dominate in Cavan for the foreseeable future.

Saturday will hurt more than any other defeat they’ve had but provided they use it as fuel, it could yet be the making of them.