Cavan senior football boss Martin McElkennon insists he only wants players with the will, the commitment and the desire to succeed. Kevin Carney reports Cavan boss Martin McElkennon can't be accused of beating about the bush and he certainly can't be accused of hiding Cavan's light behind a bushel and, for that alone, his charges should be entirely grateful. It hasn't been unknown for team-managers in GAA parlance to criticise their players in public even though the term 'employees' cannot rightfully be tagged onto even the most high-profile, vaunted GAA sportsmen. McElkennon is wont to talk-up his players at every opportunity but he does so without ever descending into plamaus mode or leaving himself open to an accusation of being less than sincere or honest. Time and time again he professes his faith in the ability of the Cavan players to match their county's peerless record in Ulster senior championship circles with similarly stand-out moments on the modern stage. "I think Cavan players have absolutely just as much potential as any players in any other county but how they apply themselves over the next few years will determine how successful they are going to be," the Cavan supremo avers. Now in his second season in Cavan, the Tyrone native is unequivocal in his assessment about the quality of players at his disposal and he is similarily clear in what OUGHT to be achieved in 2006. "Ultimately we have to think about getting beyond the last twelve of the All-Ireland; we have to look towards getting further than last year, improving on the round we got to in 2005," McElkennon says. "Anything less than an improvement on last year would be a disappointment." The St. Ciaran's Ballygawley-based PE teacher believes there's a lot of "untapped potential" in Breffni land but he recognises there's a lot of pieces in the jigsaw that make up a prize-winning, picture perfect football team. "Cavan football hasn't quite got the strength in depth in terms of quality footballers that the likes of Tyrone or Armagh have and we have to make the very most of the talent in the county. The lads have been pulling together, everyone has been going in the same direction this year but we've been very unlucky with injuries. "We started our first national league game without eleven of the fellas who played on the team against Mayo in the qualifiers last year. "That's not making excuses, that's just the difficulty you're up against when your trying to build a team." Underpinning the Cavan team-manager's views on Gaelic football is his belief that much of what determines whether a group of players succeed or not is whether or not they have the hunger to succeed and are prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to put them in a position to pummel their opponents into submission. "A manager needs his players to look after themselves outside of the normal twice-weekly county training sessions. "They need to work out at least two or three other evenings on their own time. "The idea that two nights a week is enough no longer holds and hasn't for a long time now." The Kildress native who now lives in Cookstown reckons players need to understand their own responsibilities once they have been afforded the opportunity to line out for their county and work among a team of players guided on a certain path. "A player who gets injured needs to give himself time to heal what might be, for instance, a soft tissue injury," the 39-year old teacher insists. "He has to give himself a chance and if that means not playing for his club the following weekend, well then so be it. "Players who are part of a county panel have to understand they are not able to commit themselves to so many things outside of county matters if they want to succeed." And yet the blues' boss keeps reminding us that he's an optimist at heart and his instinct is to view the glass resting on his coffee table in his living room as being half-full rather than half-empty. He acknowledges that there is a leeway to be made up before Cavan can go eyeball to eyeball with Ulster's big two of Armagh and Tyrone. On that score he believes the gap can be closed pretty quickly . . .but perhaps not in 12 months. "A lot boils down to the education of players over a long period of time and I mean their education in a range of departments from the time they're no more than fourteen, fifteen or sixteen. "In talking about players who want to make it in the game, it can't be over-emphasised just how important it is that they look after themselves, look after their bodies. " I think you're probably talking about a lifestyle change for players who aren't looking after themselves. "It's no longer good enough for players at inter-county level to just have talent. They have to have the whole package. "The reality is that they have to show a major degree of self-discipline at a very early stage of their development as a players and not just when they arrive at the age of 26 or 27." For all the superlatives that Martin McElkennon is apt to use to describe the decent qualities of Cavan's current crop of premier footballers, he is nobody's fool. He reckons the fact that the Breffni County hasn't won the Ulster MFC title since 1974 tells a tale about Cavan Football Inc. over the last 30 years and more. "Obviously something has gone amiss down the years because 32 years of a gap speaks for itself. "If you look at Tyrone, they've won maybe eight or nine Ulster minor titles in that period of time and a lot of those fellas have gone onto win Ulster senior championship titles and national league titles. "There's no magic wand when it comes down to producing players who are capable of doing the business at senior level. "If they don't produce the goods at underage level and aren't doing the right things at that stage of their development, it's very, very hard to change bad habits and make them into better overall players." Involved with crack Tyrone outfit Errigal Ciaran on their successful Ulster club voyage of 1997, the Tyrone minors in their Ulster MFC success the same year (the first such success in ten years) before assisting Eamon Coleman in the Derry camp for three years, the Cavan coach expanded his inter-county c.v. further by helping Dominic Corrigan steer Fermanagh to a first Croke Park appearance in over 70 years back in 2003. His track record across the border brooks no debate. And over the last two years, his reputation has been further embellished in Cavan where he has endeared himself to players, county board members, fans and the local media. But those closest to McElkennon insist he's not in the game to win popularity contests. They point to the fact that as the chief member of the Cavan management team, its decision to drop Gowna's Mark McKeever from the squad earlier this year hardly smacked of a popularity vote-getting exercise. The Cavan team-manager maintains that the players currently under his aegis are "trying very hard and their attitude has changed over the last two years." He says Cavan has paid dearly for bouts of indiscipline in the recent past, citing incidents in the 2004 Ulster SFC clash with Armagh, the 2005 Ulster SFC clash with Tyrone (drawn game) and the 2005 Ulster under 21 championship final versus Down as fatal lapses in discipline by certain Cavan players. "I don't see the likes of Tyrone going down that road at crucial times," McElkennon adds. Aside from Tyrone's greater self-discipline, what does he feel made the difference in the replay of that championship duel with Tyrone last Summer? "We've a young team that's still developing and they didn't manage to put the nail in Tyrone's coffin the first day. "Having said that, skill levels don't alter in the space of a week and we should have been able to put them under exactly the same pressure in the replay. "I think 70% of the reason for our defeat in the replay could be put down to psychology. "The fact that we let them off the hook the first day and the greater self-belief of the Tyrone players kicked in for the replay. "That lack of self-belief among Cavan teams over the years is something that has coloured a lot of Cavan defeats." Is the burden of expectation a weight too much on the players' shoulders or is the county's glorious past a monkey on the backs of successive Cavan sides over the past 40 years and more? "I know it can be very hard to convince fellas of their ability to change things around when their county has been on a losing run for so long but, having said that, I don't think the current group of Cavan players are weighed down by any burden or have any hang-ups about what Cavan teams in the past achieved. "I think it all boils down to whether the players you have at your disposal are prepared to devote themselves 100% to the cause for a certain number of years, even if that means that their social life, family and even work suffers to varying degrees. "Players nowadays should look to the likes of Peter Canavan who was 34 when he won the All-Ireland last year and Kieran McGeeney who is still playing at 35. "Why quit inter-county football at 27 or 28? Why not give it everything for as long as you're fit and able? I mean, how badly do players in Cavan want success? Time will tell. Tweet

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