Last year saw the often disgruntled senior hurlers of Cavan enjoy an improved season on the playing field. Now, sharpshooter Mark McEntee wants to see the Breffni men maintain the status and perhaps even surpass all expectations under new boss John Hunt. When Mark McEntee got his first taste of hurling in Cavan, the small ball game was at one of its lowest ebbs in the Breffni County. Even with the millennium's turn the majority of Cavan's GAA followers could not be steered away from the, seemingly, lone attraction of Gaelic football on the club and inter-county scene. Before falling for a Cavan woman, McEntee had hurled for nearly 10 years at senior level with the famous Kilmacud Crokes club in his native county of Dublin and had impressed with the Metropolitans at underage level among their attacking ranks beforehand. A clearly gifted forward, the hurling heads up in the Mullahoran St Joseph's club would only be glad to hear that McEntee would be settling down with his new wife in the neighbouring parish of Gowna. After catching the eye with his newly adopted club, who were ruling the roost in the Cavan club hurling, a call up to the senior county setup was inevitable. It was that simple for McEntee to make his breakthrough, but he makes it sound so much simpler. "I feel in love with a Cavan woman and settled down in Gowna about seven years ago," explained McEntee. "After a couple of months I started hurling with Mullahoran and fitted in well with them. "I had hurled with Dublin at minor and Under 21 level before and was kind of approached then over whether or not I would play for Cavan a few months into playing with Mullahoran. So, I said I would give it a lash and see how things went." Things went smoothly for McEntee. While Cavan still weren't gaining the results, McEntee's potency up front made him a real addition and it wouldn't be long before he'd cement his place as a regular on the team. Since then McEntee has enjoyed many senior championship triumphs with Mullahoran and even a junior title success with Gowna's footballers, but has been starved of success on the inter-county stage. Cavan's track record in hurling has, unfortunately, read very much like the footballers over the past decade, with little to no silverware being picked up in the process. However, last year saw the Breffni hurlers come on in strides under a new training regime sent down by the Ulster Council and McEntee is hoping that Cavan can use it to now push on and challenge against each and every team they come up against in '09. "In the hurling it (last year) was a good improvement," said McEntee. "We had an outsider training us in Frankie Quinn and his methods were a lot more modern, I thought. We done a lot with the ball and there was a real togetherness within the squad, and instead of going out and getting beat by 15 or 20 points, we were pushing teams." Under the managership of Michael 'Bricker' Wall and guidance of Quinn, Cavan got to work for their 2008 season four weeks before the New Year, with the National League's throw-in fast approaching in February. The hard slog saw Cavan spend six weeks in the gym, with training co-coached by Games Development Manager Nicholas Walsh, and after that it was down to getting the basic skills right on the pitch. Session after session and drill after drill would have Cavan's hurlers well tuned up by the time it came to travel to Carrick-on-Shannon to take on Leitrim in the first round of the league. Fittingly, it was McEntee that got Cavan's hurling year off to the ideal start by smashing in the game's first goal inside 10 minutes, which was to be backed up by Edward Dalton moments later. From there, the visitors would always have control and went on to record their county's first victory in a competitive fixture in four years on a scoreline of 2-8 to 0-8 at Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada. The wind would have been very much in Cavan's sails after that and a hosting of their neighbours in Ballyconnell the following week was highly anticipated by both the players and management. In the heavy fog at First Ulsters Park, Cavan narrowly missed out on gaining a result against a formidable Fermanagh outfit and slipped to their first defeat of the season. Further losses followed to South Down and Monaghan, but Wall's men would still be confident entering their Ulster Championship bout with the Farney County come early May. Played at Breffni Park, Cavan matched their counter-parts pound for pound in the provincial bout and took the lead heading towards injury-time. The hosts looked to be in line for a memorable, and perhaps even groundbreaking, win but a mammoth amount of injury-time worked against them as the visitors' substitute Michael Greaney struck a quick 1-1 in the dying stages, which saw Monaghan escape Cavan GAA headquarters with a 2-15 to 1-16 victory. "That was a tough loss to take," admitted McEntee. "We looked to be in a good position heading towards the end but the referee must have played seven or eight minutes of injury-time, which was ridiculous." The defeat provided a crushing blow to Wall's team and their season. An early exit from Ulster saw Cavan go into the Nicky Rackard Cup now looking to prove a point. A defeat to eventual winners Sligo was followed by an inspiring win over Warwickshire, where marksman Kevin Downes was the star of the show with 11 points. The win meant Cavan were into the quarter-finals, where they would come up against Frank Brady's Monaghan for the third time in one season and it was the Farney men that came away with a hat-trick of triumphs over Wall's side in the end. "By that stage Monaghan seemed to have learned more from playing us then we did from them and they were able to get the better of us," said McEntee. "It's something hopefully we can learn from for this year, because on paper I don't think there's much between us and the teams we are playing." With the appointment of Clare man John Hunt, McEntee believes Cavan hurling have taken a massive stride in the right direction for the future. "I think it's a fantastic appointment," he said. "Hopefully his past experiences of managing in Clare and Meath can bring us to a new level, a higher level for hurling in this county. "We started the year with a panel of 34 and we are trying to focus on things like working for one another in games, the way you see so many teams in Division One and Two doing nowadays." Cavan's first outing under the Tulla native saw the boys in blue put in a promising display against Longford, as they trashed their neighbours and McEntee, who incidentally hit struck an impressive 2-2 in the win, believes it has come down to the squad getting the basic things right. "Training has been going well so far this year. We're spending two nights on the field and two nights in the gym and when you're training in the gym regularly it shows," he explained. "On the field we are working on getting the puck-outs right and not giving away many frees. Hopefully, this year we can score more goals as well, because I think that's where the results are going to going to come for us." Now coming up on a decade since transferring from Dublin to puck his first sliotar with the Breffni County, McEntee finds himself welcoming newcomers like former Meath underage marksman Adrian McManus, whose father hails from Mullahoran, into the squad. "We've had two or three new lads to come into the panel as well likes of Adrian McManus, who has done well since he's come in. I think it's important to try and make the squad as strong as possible, even if it means bringing in outsiders, because if you train and play with subs then you'll end up a sub," insisted McEntee. "A lot of people don't realise it, but Cavan do have some really quality players," he continued. "The likes of Paul Sheridan and Kevin Downes are as good as anyone on their day and they are really looking to win something with their county sooner rather than later." Perhaps McEntee underestimates himself in that list. In 2006 the Dublin born attacker joined the likes of Daithi Neary and Paul Sheridan by picking up a Nicky Rackard Cup All Star for his outstanding performances during the autumn competition. "It was a fantastic achievement and also a real piece of recognition from the managers, because there were so many that had performed well in the Nicky Rackard that year," he said. The award nestles nicely beside McEntee's two Blue All Stars he received while hurling in the capital along with the minor, three Under 21, junior and intermediate championship medals he won with Kilmacud - not to mention the senior championship titles he's earned with Mullahoran every year since he's been at the club. And while he came close to capturing a first Ulster title with St Joseph's last year, McEntee insists that Cavan and progress will be his main focus on the field this season. "The idea will be to approach every game looking to win," he simply puts it. "The Lory Meagher is certainly winnable. You have teams like South Down and Monaghan there, but hopefully by then we will know where we are and can give the likes of those a game." With a new man at the helm and McEntee helping spearhead the challenge, there should be no reason to doubt the claim. For eight years now Mark McEntee has been working as the Director of Sales with chemicals company Moynihan and Moynihan. On the go for 22 years, the Cork based company is a well established outfit with over 20 full-time employees. McEntee is based at home and travels across the northern part of the county, promoting the company's products. Tweet

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