2011 saw Cavan Gaels firmly returned to the summit of Cavan club football when they trounced a Castlerahan side playing in their first SFC final in 43 years. In the end, Darren Chapman's men came away convincing 4-11 to 0-7 winners.

On October 2, a rampant Cavan Gaels side took back the Cavan senior football championship crown with an emphatic 16-point victory over Castlerahan at Kingspan Breffni Park.
Last year's beaten finalists couldn't have asked for a better start to what was a one-sided decider, with Kevin Meehan banging in their first goal inside three minutes, and from there on the Gaels never looked like losing as further majors followed over the hour via Martin Dunne, Sean Johnston and Robert Maloney-Derham.

Castlerahan, who would have been deeply disappointed with their performance, did their utmost to make a fight of it after conceding the early goal but, in truth, were simply outclassed as the game grew on and in a demoralising second-half were outscored by 2-5 to 0-4 as the Gaels marched on to the coveted title and an Ulster club SFC quarter-final with Donegal champions Glenswilly.

The Gaels started in brilliant fashion, with Dominic Reilly finding Martin Dunne inside after just two minutes for the deadly corner-forward to offload to an unmarked Kevin Meehan, who lashed the ball to Jamie Leahy's net.
The goal was made look simple by Darren Chapman's side and left Castlerahan with an even more uphill battle, but they took to the challenge well as the a Cian Mackey free was the immediate reply before the flame-haired attacker lashed over a splendid score to trim the deficit to one.

Michael Lyng grabbed the Gaels first point on 13 minutes, after dummying on to his left boot and sliding the ball over, and Dunne added another on the quarter hour mark as Castlerhan's defence was caught napping.
With Mackey operating in a playmaker's role around the centre, Castlerahan's tactic was to hit Sean Brady inside at full-forward at every opportunity and it very nearly came off for them when Brian Coleman got one-on-one with Eoghan Elliot, but corner-forward drove his shot straight at the Gaels goalkeeper.

It would prove a costly miss, as Robert Maloney-Derham, who was grafting well at wing-back, pointed in the next attack before another slick Gaels move provided the Ballyjamesduff men with another hammer blow.
Good work from Enda King released Kevin Meehan, who would go on to scoop the 'Man of the Match' award, down the right flank and the versatile number 14 crossed to Dunne on the edge of the square from where he side-stepped his marker and buried to Leahy's left-hand corner.

Rocked by the concession of another goal, Castlerahan would only post just one free through Oisin O'Connell for the remainder of the half, while the Gaels' momentum carried them towards scoring three more points through Johnston (2) and Niall Smith to close the half at 2-6 to 0-3.
Paul Smith nabbed the first score of the resumption for Castlerahan, who were in need of drastic change to turn things around. Lyng cancelled-out down the far end, before Sean Brady sent over a superb free to leave Ciaran Macken's men still with an outside chance.

However, hopes of a comeback from the underdogs were all but extinguished when a mix-up from a sideline ball by two Castlerahan players allowed Meehan to pick their pocket and he carried possession as far as Johnston, who fired low to the corner of the net.

O'Connell hit back with a point for the trailers, but when Maloney-Derham got in for goal number four on 45 minutes it furthered compiled the misery for Castlerahan and confirmed that the Oliver Plunkett Cup would be returning to Cavan town.
Dunne and Brady (free) exchanged scores, as the Chapman could well afford to empty his bench in a drab closing quarter, sending on veterans Paul O'Donnell, Sean Reilly and young defender Daniel Graham, before the lethal Dunne brought his tally for the evening up to 1-4 on the eve of the full-time whistle.

Cavan Gaels: Eoghan Elliot; Darren Rabbitt, Cathal Collins, Niall Gurhy; Darragh Sexton, Eamonn Reilly, Robert Maloney-Derham (1-1); Enda King, Dominic Reilly; Niall Smith (0-1), Sean Johnston (1-3, 2f), Niall Murray; Martin Dunne (1-4), Kevin Meehan (1-0), Michael Lyng (0-2). Subs: Karl Crotty for N Murray (41mins), Paul O'Donnell for N Murray (46mins), Daniel Graham for E Reilly (46mins), Sean Reilly for E King (48mins), Cormac Nelligan for S Johnston (56mins)

Castlerahan: Jamie Leahy; Caolan McBreen, Eugene Hill, Fergal Flanagan; David Wright, Ronan Flanagan, Enda O'Connell; Paul Brady, John Clarke; Nigel Duignan, Sean Brady (0-2, 2f), Paul Smith (0-1); Cian Mackey (0-2, 1f), Oisin O'Connell (0-2, 1f), Brian Coleman. Subs: Stephen Cooney for D Wright (HT), Alan Cusack for J Clarke (blood sub, 34mins), Alan Mulvey for E Hill (41mins), Fergal Reilly for C McBreen (48mins), Paul Cusack for P Smith (57mins).
Ref: Brendan Sweeney (Ballymachugh).

Match Reaction
Cavan Gaels' Sean Johnston: "We promised ourselves that we'd be back (after losing the final last year) and give it a good shot and that's what we've done, we trained very hard over the last four or five months. We had an up and down league campaign and I suppose we were written off by a few, but we got our just rewards for our hard work there today. Castlerahan captain Ronan Flanagan. "It wasn't good enough, Cavan Gaels were the better team and they deserved the win. Simple mistakes and they punished us, and they're a good team…We are a young team, sure hopefully we can come back again."

Man of the Match
After delivering what was a splendid team performance, Cavan Gaels again had several match winners in their ranks, with Martin Dunne contributing 1-4 and Robert Maloney-Derham also giving an excellent performance at wing-back from where he scored 1-1. However, the much versatile Kevin Meehan was deserving of the 'Man of the Match' award. His early goal settled the Gaels in immediately as they never looked back, and although he was named at number 14 he spent large portions of the game in his own half-back line.

Move of the Match
Maloney-Derham's 46th minute goal was expertly taken by the young defender and came off the back of another devastating Cavan Gaels break, which saw the number 7 win possession in his own half and feed Michael Lyng, who cleverly slipped Maloney-Derham with a fist-pass towards the edge of the square from where he did the rest.

Turning point
Castlerahan's only clear-cut goal chance would arrive 10 minutes in when Brian Coleman was threaded through, but the corner-forward's shot was straight at goalkeeper Eoghan Elliot and from there the Gaels went up field to notch a Maloney-Derham point which was immediately backed up by Kevin Meehan carrying possession into the corner and crossing to Martin Dunne, who dummied his marker and buried to the back of Jamie Leahy's net. After that, it was complete one-way traffic. Tweet

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