Tough times indeed
December 30, 2010Where does it keep going wrong for the senior footballers of Cavan? Another season done and dusted just two weeks into July and another manager gone by the wayside.
A dream start to 2010 against to-be Connacht champions Roscommon in the National Football League ended in with a whipping at the hands of Cork, which led to Tommy Carr preaching the "gulf in class" between his team and the Rebels before confirming his resignation to the county board a week later.
It's been the same old story for Cavan for too long now and it has been there for everyone to see. Avoiding relegation, players opting out of the squad and an early championship exit have been the unwanted trend the team has adopted and the past two years have seen them at a low ebb, suggesting that the only way now is up.
You could have said that at the end of their 2009 season, when the Blues were taught a lesson about ruthlessness and putting pride in the jersey by Mick O'Dwyer's Wicklow at Aughrim in the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers, but, in plain truth, 2010 didn't unravel any better.
'The Big Freeze' disrupted teams' preparations at the start of the year and it was the third week of January before Cavan's Dr McKenna Cup campaign got underway against Donegal at Kingspan Breffni Park, where Carr's new-look team fell to a narrow two-point defeat. Despite the result, most of the talk afterwards was about Cavan's new centre-forward, Gareth 'Nesty' Smith, who caught the eye by notching seven points on his Breffni debut.
The Oliver Plunkett's ace was one of two outsiders which Carr would call on to try and bolster his attack, with Simonstown native Michael Brennan making his return to the squad for the first time since 2007 and also re-joining the Drumalee club, with whom he had enjoyed an intermediate championship success. Both would go on to play in all of Cavan's championship outings come the summer.
Up front wasn't the only area Carr and his management team tweaked. In defence, Denn pair Eoin McPhilips and Tomas Corr were drafted in for county senior debuts, as were Alan Clarke (Kingscourt), Eoin McGuigan (Belturbet), Dane O'Dowd (Drumlane) and Mark Johnston (Cornafean). All five would also make the cut for the squad come the team's Ulster SFC opener against Fermanagh on June 12.
Losses to St Mary's and Tyrone in the space of a week ended an experimental McKenna Cup campaign on a negative tone, but it looked to be all worth it when Carr's charges travelled to Dr Hyde Park and recorded a resounding 2-20 to 1-10 over Roscommon, with Lacken full-forward Raymond Galligan registering an impressive 0-10 in the absence of marksman Sean Johnston, who would miss the entire league trail after dislocating his elbow whilst on Sigerson Cup duty with DCU.
It was the desired lift the players needed a game into their competitive season, but they were firmly brought down to earth when their provincial conquers of eight months previous visited Kingspan Breffni Park. There Liam Bradley's Antrim brushed aside the hosts, who had fell apart in the second-half, to claim a 2-13 to 1-8 victory to take two more points on their way to promotion from Division Three.
A disappointing 0-13 to 1-6 defeat to Louth in Drogheda, where a rousing start after an early Cian Mackey goal raised hopes, left Carr commenting afterwards that there were "a number of areas we need to address". The loss meant that Carr's team would need to overcome Wexford's challenge at Kingspan Breffni Park in order to keep a relegation dog-fight at bay, with a visit to high-flying Sligo just around the corner
Once again, Cavan stuck with a Denn full-back line of Eoin McPhilips, Tomas Corr and team captain Martin Cahill and the home side led by 0-8 to 0-7 at half-time with Ronan Flanagan opening the scoring with a fisted point inside the first minute. Flanagan ended the first-half with four points and was a constant threat from right half-forward, while free-taker Shane Roche kept Wexford in touch.
Two points from Cian Mackey and another from midfielder David Givney on the restart put daylight between the sides for the first time, and Cavan grew in confidence after that as Mackey went on to raise five more white flags to secure a 0-17 to 0-12 victory.
The win saw Cavan travel to Markievicz Park with confidence, with two more points giving them a genuine chance of promotion, and they took in a slender one-point lead at half-time as Gareth Smith and the ever-dangerous Mackey took the fight to the Yeats men. Mackey added three more points after the interval, but it was a disastrous final ten minutes that would spell defeat for the visitors as Sligo hit 1-4, with the goal coming from Kenneth Sweeney, and not even in six minutes of injury-time could the Blues save themselves from a third defeat of the campaign.
The loss slumped Cavan back into relegation worries, rather than promotion hopes, and a showdown with Offaly at Kingspan Breffni Park became a must-win game. Another return of 0-8 from Mackey brought the home side half-way there, as they raced five points clear in the opening quarter but a brave comeback from the Faithful County left nothing in it at half-time.
Hesitant to let the home support down, the Breffni men resumed nicely as full-forward Mickey Brennan, Gareth Smith and Flanagan shot over points to help re-establish a five-point advantage and they wouldn't look back as further scores from Mackey, Mark McKeever and Brennan saw them reach the 0-20 tally, which would be enough for a six-point triumph.
It was a rare week of positive news for Cavan football, after the Under 21s scored a huge victory over Down in the opening round of the Ulster championship, and the players knew they wanted to keep the momentum going when they welcomed Fermanagh for their remaining league game before the summer's championship became the sole focus of attention.
Safe from the drop-zone - and with an outside chance of promotion still on the cards - Cavan took on their neighbours, with Carr handing out chances to newcomers Dane O'Dowd and Mark Johnston and returning pair Michael Hannon and Ray Cullivan, before the sides met again in two months' time.
The teams were even during the opening 35 minutes, with Cavan edging the 0-6 to 0-5 half-time lead, but Fermanagh's wides' tally continued to rise into the second-half and it proved their undoing as Smith, Mackey and McKeever contributed the scores, along with two from play from midfielder Lorcan Mulvey, to assure their side a 0-11 to 0-7 win would bring the curtain down on a mixed league campaign, where narrow defeats to Louth and Sligo proved costly in their hopes for promotion.
Mackey, who was arguably Cavan's top performer in the league, indicated afterwards that the Breffni men were unfortunate to miss out on Division Two football for 2011.
"At the start of the year we hoped to get promoted, but it didn't go according to plan. But we regrouped and started to improve towards the end of the league, getting a couple of wins under our belts," said the Castlerahan man.
"We're unlucky not to get promoted, but that's just the way it goes. It's all a stepping-stone - we improved the whole way through the league."
Arguably, only Kenneth Sweeney's late goal in the Sligo defeat denied Carr's team promotion and that suggested a marked improvement on 2009, and with key-man Sean Johnston returning to fitness Breffni supporters were optimistic heading into the big clash with Fermanagh on June 12.
Carr himself admitted after the league win over the Ernesiders that he was wary of the threat that they would carry, particularly after showing them the exit door in Ulster the year previous.
"I have got warnings from all over the place saying that Fermanagh can play like that in the league and then come out and play championship football," said the Tipperary native.
"Joe Kernan reminded me of that too and they can be very dangerous. Cavan are not a team that can take another Ulster team for granted. In one sense, we know that we can beat them, but then the tables always get turned in Gaelic football and you just hope it's not going to be this time."
Carr handed out six Ulster SFC debuts right up the central positions of his team for the Fermanagh game to goalkeeper Fintan Reilly, Tomas Corr (full-back), Eoin McGuigan (centre-back), Alan Clarke (left half-back), Gareth Smith (centre-forward), Mickey Brennan (full-forward). Contrastingly, Cavan Gaels club-mates Sean Johnston and Nicholas Walsh were welcomed back from and ruled out through injury, respectively.
The opening stages at Kingspan Breffni Park were tit-for-tat as the hosts edged a 0-4 to 0-3 lead after the first 20 minutes, as the superb David Givney, Cian Mackey, Paul Brady and Gareth Smith fired over the Blues' scores. They pushed on from there as Brennan, Smith and Johnston opened up a three-point lead, but the backs were struggling to handle the red-hot Ryan Carson at the other end and he helped to reduce Fermanagh's deficit by 0-8 to 0-7 at half-time.
Fermanagh took the lead early on in the second-half before Cavan hit back through a '45' from the faultless Smith and an excellent score from Johnston, but the Breffni men withered in the closing quarter as they failed to account for the quality of Seamus Quigley, who came off the bench to lash over two sublime points, and when Ryan Carson snuck in behind their defence to bang in the game's only goal a 1-13 to 0-13 defeat was sealed.
Carr offered no excuses afterwards as his team were badly caught out (and their place at the bottom of the pile in Ulster confirmed) and instead turned his focus towards the qualifiers and a second consecutive meeting with Mick O'Dwyer's Wicklow - this time at Kingspan Breffni Park.
The management made the bold choices in dropping team captain Martin Cahill and ace forward Sean Johnston to be bench for the game and would also be without the injured David Givney, who was arguably their best performer in the Fermanagh defeat, while Paul Brady was unavailable through handball commitments in the US. It meant there were places spare for Michael Hannon, John McCutcheon, Lorcan Mulvey and Martin Reilly to come in.
Ex-captain Ronan Flanagan sailed over the first point of the game inside the opening two minutes, but for the rest of the half things went from bad to worse for Cavan as Wicklow registered 1-2 with Leighton Glynn converting a penalty after JP Dalton was fouled in the 10th minute and that followed with points from Paul Earls and Tony Hannon. The Garden men hit a second goal in the 25th minute when Sean Furlong managed to find room and fire home to leave it 2-5 to 0-4, as the visitors looked far more comfortable in possession, and when Tomas Corr was shown a second caution for a tangle with Paul Cunningham just before the interval things looked gloomy.
A sending off for Lorcan Mulvey after clashing with Glynn along the sideline looked to be the final nail in Cavan's coffin, before they played their aces in reserve with Johnston, Cahill and McKeever all coming off the bench to play salient roles in one of the biggest turnarounds ever witnessed in the championship.
Operating by himself in the full-forward line, Johnston was the catalyst for victory, despite being doubled marked, as he fired over six points, one of which was an utter gem (and quite possibly the finest score ever witnessed in Breffni Park) from the right corner towards the town end. McKeever, Cahill, Flanagan and Brennan kept the supply coming, as did substitute Dane O'Dowd, who sent in another to the electric Cavan Gaels ace and he dummied past Ciaran Hyland to fire over the winner in injury-time to complete a magnificent turn around after being seven points and two men down with just over 20 minutes to go.
Cavan (SFC qualifier v Wicklow): F Reilly; D Sheridan, T Corr, M Hannon; M Brides, J McCutcheon, A Clarke (0-1); C Galligan, L Mulvey; R Flanagan (0-2), G Smith (0-4, 1f, 1 '45'), E McGuigan (0-1); C Mackey, M Brennan, M Reilly. Subs: S Johnston (0-6, 2f) for Mackey, M Cahill for M Reilly, M McKeever (0-1) for McGuigan, D O'Dowd for Galligan.
The win was a sorely needed one for Carr's team that demonstrated the group's character and capability when their backs were against the wall, however, when the draw for the next round of the qualifiers threw up a trip to Leeside the team knew that they would be truly up against it.
Afterwards Carr rued what he described as a "cruel draw" for his team against All-Ireland favourites Cork and one that would ultimately bring an end to his two-year reign as Cavan manager.
"It is a pretty cruel draw you would have to admit. I think everybody in the country would admit that," he said.
"Everything has its up side. Absolutely nothing will be expected of us. If we get beaten by a point or 20 points, it won't raise any eyebrows. But if we manage to scrap a win, wouldn't that raise a few eyebrows?
"They (Cork) are a fine side, a real good football side. I actually tipped them to win the All-Ireland this year. So the big thing is that we are competitive and we get stuck into it because the thing is it is not a bigger task than the one we faced against Wicklow."
The performance from the visitors at Pairc Ui Chaoimh is hardly worth recalling. Completely out of their depth against the would-be All-Ireland champions, Cavan trailed by eight points at half-time, with Mackey grabbing their only point late on, after having the advantage of the breeze.
In the second-half, the misery mounted for the Breffni men as Cork ran up a 14-point lead before a Johnston free halted the onslaught momentarily and two quick points from Ronan Flanagan completed Cavan's tally for the afternoon, but in the end a 1-19 to 0-4 score-line was nothing short of an embarrassment for all Cavan parties concerned and led to Carr informing the players in the dressing-room afterwards of his resignation, before it was made official by the county board a few days afterwards.
By September the county board moved to appoint Val Andrews and Terry Hyland as joint managers to succeed Carr, handing them a three-year term with a review after the second season.
Andrews, who was in charge of the Dublin minors this year, is returning for a second stint with the Breffni men, having served as manager from 1998 to 2001. But despite guiding them to an Ulster final appearance in the latter year, he didn't get unanimous approval to continue from the clubs and decided to step down. The Ballymun Kickhams clubman subsequently managed Louth for two years and also had a spell in charge of the Leinster inter-provincial team.
Lacken clubman Hyland, who led the Cavan Under 21 and junior sides to provincial final appearances this year, served as a selector with Andrews during his previous time involved with the county.
At the county board's specially convened meeting on August 26 in the Hotel Kilmore, the duo were proposed by Lacken's Jimmy Galligan and seconded by Johnny O'Hanlon of Cavan Gaels. The clubs were unanimous in their support for the appointment of the new co-managers, neither of whom were present at the meeting. Tweet
