Few clubs can sport the sort of football tradition or pedigree as that boasted by Cornafean. With their 2000 JFC title success fast becoming a distant memory, Phil Cullen is determined that silverware will make a re-appearance among the Reds before the coming year is spent. By Phil Cullen's high standards, 2001 wasn't a great year in football parlance. After so many days in the sun in recent years with the likes of Ballymachugh, Drumgoon and current club Cornafean, the past year was a disappointment, he admits. After the tremendous buzz generated by the Reds' dramatic junior championship title triumph in 2000 - the club's first adult championship success in more than 30 years - it was always going to be difficult to keep such good times going. And so it proved with his adopted club having somewhat of a nondescript campaign in both league and championship fare. Finishing in the bottom half of the league and forced into a last-gasp effort to avoid relegation back to the junior grade was, on the face of it, the story of 2001 for Cullen and co. However, when one scrapes the veneer, a much more revealing picture emerges about the Cornafean camp . For starters, the club was badly hit by injuries during the year and because of their limited pool of players, Cornafean weren't quite able to mount a concerted effort on either the league or championship front. Serious injury worries for the likes of Ciaran Martin (knee), Kieran Reilly (recuperating), Eamon Gaffney (recuperating) and Eamon Reilly (shoulder) fairly threw a spanner in the works of Cornafean as the league season kicked-off. In a situation whereby the Reds invariably cannot afford to be missing one regular, missing a handful can be a near mortal blow to their season's hopes. And then there was the whole issue of the foot-and-mouth disease also. Because of the fact that most of the players involved with Cornafean make their living off the land meant that the impact of the restrictions of the FMD was felt by the Cornafean club more so than by most of the other clubs in the county. "The foot-and-mouth disease created a lot of problems but we made the decision ourselves not to train. Livelihoods were at stake and so there was no training done for around five weeks which didn't help us at all in terms of getting to grips with the early part of the season," Phil recalls. Not surprisingly then, Cornafean struggled to make an impact in both the league and championship. In the latter competition, respectability was the name of the game and it was duly achieved with a battling draw with Lavey, a narrow defeat to Drung - when a four goal blitz destroyed their bid for the spoils - and a two point loss to Drumalee. A silver lining for the club in 2001 came in the form of some tremendously spirited and skilful displays in the All-Ireland junior sevens competition hosted by the St. Jude's club in Dublin during which the Cavan ambassadors reached the quarter-final only to lose out to Ballybay before proceeding to the semi-finals of the Plate competition only to be beaten by two points to host team, St. Judes, the eventual winners. "If we had all the players fully fit and available to us, there's no doubt in my mind that we would have performed a lot better during the past season. But because our numbers are limited, we just don't have the strength in depth to compensate for so many key men being out injured. "Hopefully we'll have much better luck on the injury front for the coming season. If that transpires then I think we'll have every chance of making it out of division three. "Our priority for the coming year is to get promotion in the league. It's very important that the current bunch of players get the chance to play in a league where the football is of a higher standard and although there isn't much separating division two and three in terms of standard, it is still a rung further up the ladder." And what of the intermediate championship title next year? "We'll try and get off to a good start in the league and get a few wins under our belts but we'll not be setting our sights on winning the championship. " Of course if things go well for us in the championship, we'll be delighted. But it would be just a tremendous bonus if we happened to make progress in the championship which was well beyond what we anticipate. The league will be the major part of our focus though." Sandwiched between the gaeldoms of Lacken, Killeshandra and Arva, the pull on player personnel in Cornafean and that region of the county as a whole is obvious. Still, the club is able to field two adult teams and the outgoing team-manager expresses the hope that some young talent can be unearthed from the reserve team in the coming year. "It's very important that the club finds a couple of new players to add to the senior squad and although I won't be managing the second team, I'll always be keeping an eye out for the players and hoping to bring on a couple onto the senior team. "There are some good players at under 16 and minor levels at the club right now and while they may be a bit too young to throw in at the deep end, I'd like to see a few of them training with the seniors during the course of the coming year with a view to seeing how they perform at that level." Talk of underage players and the suggestion that Cornafean seem to struggle on an annual basis for numbers brooks no debate with Phil. "Having to amalgamate to compete at underage is not the ideal thing but #the club hasn't had any choice over the years because of limited numbers." Is he a fan of amalgamations, per se? "No. Even when I was on the county minor board and with Cavan Gaels, I wasn't in favour of amalgamations. Having said that, I can understand why clubs apply to amalgamate. If they haven't enough players of their own to form a team, what choice have they in trying to see that their players get a game. You have to be realistic when you're debating the pros and cons of amalgamations." Whatever about the small pool of players that Cornafean has to make do with, Phil says that his adopted club has the potential to win the intermediate championship in 2002 even if the winning of the title is not his priority. "I wasn't overly impressed by the standard of football I witnessed at intermediate level last year. I didn't think there was that much of a difference between the kind of football we played in winning the junior championship in 2000 and the quality of football played by the teams we came up against in 2001. "After all, you must remember that we were well down the division three table when we beat Drumgoon - who were near the top of division two - in the junior final and it was a similar story last year with Castlerahan winning the intermediate championship despite the fact that they were operating out of division three. "Irrespective of the standard of play though, you can't beat winning to boost a club's morale. Winning isn't everything but the sight of our captain Art McSeain receiving the junior championship cup from county board chairman and Cornafean clubman George Cartwright was a moment to treasure." As someone who has been involved successfully in managing Ballymachugh, Drumgoon and Cornafean and coaching football teams in Cavan since the mid-eighties - when he linked up with Tony Looney to manage successful Cavan Gaels underage teams - Phil is well positioned to assess the way football has changed in nature over the past 20 years or thereabouts. He has some interesting views in this respect: "I feel sorry for referees, I honestly do. The game has become incredibly fast. Players who give 100% commitment are super fit which means the referees have to be very fit to be able to stay up with play. "The inability of so many teams though to put away their chances in front of goal continues to be a feature of football in Cavan, at every level. And there are very few players who are able to convert a '45 nowadays. That's becoming a bit of a lost art ever since the free-kick from the ground was done away with, which was a pity in my view," the Rathangan (Wexford) native opines. A man obviously born into the school of coaching which dictates that "there are no miracle workers in management and that the achievement of success for any team is principally down to the players", Phil says he is confident that Cornafean can achieve promotion this coming season into division two "once the players give the club the sort of commitment they delivered over the last two years." So we can take it our man Cullen will be doing his damnedest to see to it that the Reds are a committed, determined bunch in 2002? "I'll do my very best. Cornafean is a great club, with a proud history and a great football tradition and it needs success. There's a great group of players in place right now and everyone at the club is behind the team-management so we should give it a good go in the coming year. "The players showed how much the club means to them by beating Killeshandra in our championship relegation play-off in Killeshandra last Autumn. That win meant as much to me as the junior championship win and I was delighted for everyone at the club. If the players show the same commitment and determination in 2002, we'll not be far away from a final or two." Cootehill, Drung, Drumgoon et al, please take note! Tweet

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