The history of Cavan's involvement in the Under 21 football championship has been a bitter-sweet experience over the years. 2003 saw, yet again, a sour taste being left in the mouths of the Breffni Blues. 2003 was meant to be the year when the promise shown by a host of Cavan county minor teams in recent years would bear fruit at under 21 level in the shape of an all-too rare provincial title. The plan was for the the premier crop of youngsters in the county to gain revenge at Dungannon in March when meeting defending champions Tyrone in their provincial championship first round clash. A groundswell of optimism existed in Cavan at the outset of 2003 too that the Breffni Blues would indeed come good. Although good minor teams had failed to make the breakthrough in Ulster since 2000, there was a sense among all those au fait with best of the young talent in Cavan that 2003 could see winning ways restored at under 21 level. As regards the blues' tilt with the Red Hand county, under 21 team-manager John Brady and his selectors recognised that a win in Dungannon would herald a major filip for all concerned and a possible gateway to ultimate provincial success at the very least. In the run up to the Dungannon date on Saturday March 29th, the aforementioned Laragh clubman and former Cavan star consistently acknowledged that beating Tyrone represented a tall order. It was a match also the bookies found difficult to call. Both sides sported a range of household names - at least within the confines of each county - but as any wily pundit knows, such a rich mix only serves to muddy the water as one attempts to finger a likely winner. Still a whole host of Cavan football fans did genuinely express more than a tad of confidence in relation to the ability of John Brady's charges to not only beat Tyrone but indeed go the distance in the competition for the first time since 1996. After all, Cavan had succeeded in reaching the Ulster final in 2002 and troubled Tyrone quite a bit before eventually losing out by 1-7 to 0-13. And the feeling abroad in Cavan in the Spring of 2003 was that John Brady's men were a much more experienced group than their 2002 counterparts. Indeed, the Class of 2003 was replete with 13 of the panel that featured in that provincial decider in August 2003 at Enniskillen. But then again, astute Cavan fans noted that players of the calibre of defenders, Dermot Carlin, David Harte, midfielder Peter Donnelly and forwards Sean Cavanagh, Enda McGinley and Martin Penrose were in place to embellish the O'Neill County side Indeed, ahead of the late March duel, the Cavan team were asked to face down some nine members of the Tyrone Under 21 team who boasted All-Ireland MFC winning medals from 2001. And in terms of tradition, there was simply no contest with the O'Neill County sporting All-Ireland Under 21 title wins on four occasions, 1991, 1992, 2000 and 2001. Tyrone's overall pedigree at under 21 level over the last 20 years truly put Cavan's in the shade. The O'Neill County could boast eight Under 21 Ulster titles, all told, 1972, 1973, 1980, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2000 and 2001 and, of course, in 2002 succeeded in winning the Ulster title before sadly going on to lose out to Dublin in a replay in the All-Ireland semi-final in Breffni Park. In contrast, Cavan's record in the same competition was but a pale shadow, having won just two provincial titles, in 1988 and 1996, reaching the All-Ireland final in '96 only to lose out to Kerry. It all added up to a daunting prospect for Cavan's starlets. Very few pundits gave them much of a chance of upsetting the odds and even Cavan supremo John Brady didn't attempt to underestimate the size of the challenge facing his charges. "Tyrone must be favourites to go through considering the pedigree they have in the competition and our lads will be up against it. "Because of the fact that they won the All-Ireland minor title in 2001, we can expect them to be very strong at Under 21 level this year," Brady said in the run-up to the Tyrone match. Come the day of the tie, the notion that Cavan's strength in depth at underage level was increasing year-on-year duly came under intense scrutiny by the defending champions. Team preparations weren't without their difficulties though. In the days prior to the tilt with Tyrone, John Brady and his management team of Martin Lynch (Ramor Utd), Thomas Jackson (Drung) and James Lovett (coach) had to make allowance for a number of injury worries as they sought to put together a winning formation. The Cavan think-tank could barely hide their frustration as injuries to John Tierney, Gerald Pierson, Michael Hannon and Enda King threatened to put a spanner in their works. At least the Cavan management team could call on quite a few experienced hands to raise their game to help compensate for crucial absentees. The Breffni Blues, on paper at least, appeared to have more than a reasonable chance of advancing. Once again for yet another coterie of mentors, Cavan's under 21 campaign had all the continuity of a still-birth. Arguably the best Cavan Under 21 panel assembled for many years fell foul of a typically cocky, clever and comfortable-on-the ball Tyrone team in the first round of the provincial championship, losing out by 1-9 to 1-11. Cavan had to field without their talismanic attacker and team-captain Gerald Pierson plus the eager-beaver Enda King and were ultmately found wanting as they strove to add the necessary lustre to their county's poor under 21 record. In what was a predictably frenetic and claustrophobic clash, the Cavan crew failed to show sufficient football nous to progress in the competition. "Tyrone were the better team and deserved to win. We have no excuses," team-manager Brady commented. "They were slightly the better team over the hour and their team-work was a cut above ours in particular," the Laragh clubman added. Specifically, the defending provincial champions had the greater cutting edge with their half-forward line of goalscorer Leo Meenan, Kevin Hughes and Mark Donnelly particularly threatening all-through. It was Meenan's goal, in effect, which proved the most important score in the game. The Tyrone major came in the midst of a terrific third-quarter burst by the hosts and although Cavan went for broke in the dying minutes in throwing everything at their opponents' defence, the O'Neill County held out for what was, in truth, a deserved win. Cavan's hopes of ousting the champions were always alive though and when Keith Fannin expertly drilled home a penalty in the 20th minute to give the blues a 1-3 to 0-4 lead, it looked very promising indeed. Earlier points from Sean Johnston and Kingscourt's Philip Smith had added to Cavan's optimism and it was very much all to play for as the sides went in level, at 0-7 to 1-4, at the interval. "Unfortunately we failed to build on our goal the way Tyrone did after they got their goal. "We needed to put a few points on the board straight after the goal but we didn't and we lost the initiative whereas they got a lot of impetus from their goal," team boss Brady opined. Still when Cavan opened up a two points lead straight after the restart through Mark McKeever and Sean Johnston, Cavan were in pole position and Tyrone looked rattled. However the Peter Donnelly/Sean Cavanagh axis began to limit Paddy Brady's influence on proceedings around the middle of the field. And when Meenan got his goal and then followed up with a free to add to points from James Carolan and Rory McCann, Cavan found themselves facing a 1-6 to 1-10 deficit. Cavan worked tirelessly to get on level terms and managed to pull back points through McKeever and John Tierney but stout Tyrone defence thereafter and a couple of missed frees conspired to thwart Cavan's ambitions and that was that. "I always knew it was going to be tight but we underperformed and that was probably just as big a disappointment to me as actually losing the game," team boss Brady confessed. The Cavan players who featured against Tyrone in the 2003 Ulster Under 21 Football Championship first round tie lined out as follows: James Carolan; Joey Jordan, Eamon O'Reilly, Michael Hannon; Gavin Duffy, Darryl McConnell, Keith Fannin (1-0); Paddy Brady, Sean Maguire; Philip Smith (0-2), Mark McKeever (0-2), James Clarke; Sean Brady (0-1), John Tierney (0-2), Sean Johnston (0-2). Subs; Fergal Brady for Duffy; Enda King for Smith. A couple of weeks after the Tyrone defeat, manager Brady resigned his post. He admitted to being bitterly disappointed by his side's 1-9 to 1-11 setback against a team who would later go on and retain their provincial title with some comfort. The Cavan boss claimed that Cavan didn't do themselves justice against the Red Hand men. "We badly underperformed in Dungannon and that, as much as the result, made the result very hard to take. "We reached the semi-final in 2001 and the final in 2002 and we were hopeful that we could go all the way in 2003." Patently, the former county star refused to cite the absence of his injured captain Gerard Pierson as a contributory factor in his side's exit from the championship. "Gerard was a big miss but we had seven fellas on the team who were playing for the county seniors on a regular basis and should have been able to compensate for Gerard's loss. "Unfortunately a few of them lacked confidence and failed to find their form on the day." Tweet

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