2013 isn't likely to be a year that David Givney will forget anytime soon. The midfielder earned himself Sigerson and M Donnelly Cup medals before going on to represent his county twice at Croke Park in the summer. Shane Corrigan found out what it all meant to one Cavan's brightest stars.

As far as talented midfielders go, there are few better around these parts than David Givney. The 24-year-old Mountnugent man has been a permanent fixture of Cavan's centre-field these past few years and tasted Inter-provincial and Third Level successes with Ulster and DIT, respectively, in the build-up to the Breffni men's 2013 campaign.

The fact remains, however, that Givney has yet to win silverware with Cavan, although coming agonisingly close in 2010 when Cavan lost out to Donegal in the Ulster U21FC final. The following year's historic success over Tyrone in the same competition, at the same venue (Brewster Park, Enniskillen) would see him missing out, after turning 21 too early, and since then Givney has had to watch as more and more Ulster U21 medal winners filter through to the Cavan senior set-up.

However, as someone that is likely to be around the Cavan senior panel for the foreseeable future, Givney is not complaining, having seen a notable change in the team's fortunes as of late.

What has it come down to?

"It's probably two things," said Givney. "The quality of the players coming through and the mentality of them. It's a big change from a few years ago. There are no egos in the dressing room anymore. Everyone is pulling in the one direction, which, when I was brought in the panel first, probably wasn't the case. There was probably a few individuals and that's all changed now. It's all about developing as a team now and never knowing when to give up.

"It's a case now too where some of the older lads that haven't won silverware with Cavan are now learning off the Under 21s coming through. It's never too late to change your ways and you've some of the boys coming back in there recently doing that. Cian Mackey has come back and is after having a great year and he'll probably tell you the same that it's great to be playing alongside these young lads who know how to win."

After winning the M Donnelly Cup with Ulster, playing alongside Sean Cavanagh at centre-field, at the end of 2012 before going on to capture a Sigerson Cup with DIT a few months later, Givney was intent on keeping the winning habit with Cavan in 2013.

The previous season had saw defeats to Donegal and Kildare force another early exit for Cavan in the All-Ireland SFC before the trauma of a county junior championship final defeat to Laragh United by a single point. Success with Ulster soon eased the pain before triumph with DIT helped erase some of the bad memories of the October defeat at Kingspan Breffni Park.

"It was something that I always wanted to do before I even signed to a college," he stated. "Even when I first signed up to college I looked at sides like Sligo (IT) that had great success back then so I went there for football reasons. So getting the chance to go to DIT and then actually winning the Sigerson with them was great. It was something I always wanted and I can cross it off my list.

"When we got together at the beginning of the year I didn't know a lot of the lads but most of the lads knew each other and they felt they were hard done by in the few years leading up to that and they felt they kind of had a point to prove.

"Last year they had a big push to get in some big names like Tomas O'Connor and Darran O'Sullivan - players of that calibre - and that always makes a difference. We had the quality players and went out on a few team bonding trips and as a team we got on very, very well. So I think that sort of made a difference too because when you really get on well with all your team mates you've lots of respect for each other and that goes a long way when it comes to winning tight games."

As for Cavan, many of Givney's team mates had played alongside each other in the Ulster U21 campaigns of 2010, 2011 and 2012 and were keen on outlining some new goals for the 2013 season when collective training started in the New Year.

"We sat down at the beginning of the year and we probably said that we wanted to get out of Division Three," the midfielder explained. "I suppose that didn't happen but we sat down again and decided that for the championship that we wanted to be playing football into August and an All-Ireland quarter-final was kind of our objective at the beginning of the year, and we were lucky enough that that's the way it turned out."

He added: "With regards to training and the fitness end of things, I'm not saying that we did more this year than we did last year but the running that we did was probably more related to Gaelic football to what we were doing the year before. We were doing crazy running the year before and everyone seemed to be tired towards the vital parts of the year.

"This year it definitely just seemed to click and probably Peter Donnelly coming in maybe changed that. He'd been there and done that, played at the highest level being involved with Tyrone in All-Ireland finals. So he knows what sort of fitness you need, when you need to be coming in fresh and when you need to do the hard work. So he's definitely made a difference there."

Cavan had the work put in for what they knew would be a tough Division Three campaign in the National Football League, with neighbours Meath and Monaghan having come down from the second tier.

Cavan would finish up impressive winners in both derbies, but defeats to Antrim, Fermanagh and Roscommon would deny them promotion which saw the focus sharply turn towards their Ulster SFC opener with Armagh in May.

"We had put such a big emphasis out of getting promoted out of the league. We went up to Antrim and we were very flat that day and things just didn't click for us," Givney admitted.

"Everyone was sort of thinking that it was the same old story about Cavan and to be honest the mood with ourselves wasn't great after. But after that game we went back and worked hard and Terry (Hyland) just kept saying that if we work to the system that things will click for us and they did because we had some very good performances in the league. We didn't get promoted, but there was definitely some positives to take and it sets us up nicely for next year's league. It's something we'd like to push on for and get out of Division Three."

Come May, Cavan were primed for the Armagh test, according to Givney, and despite the loss of midfield partner Gearoid McKiernan through a cruciate ligament injury, they were confident in upsetting the odds against Armagh.

A convincing victory over the Orchard men at Kingspan Breffni Park was backed up by another winning display against Fermanagh in Enniskillen which sent Terry Hyland's men into the last four of the province. From there, it would be Monaghan in Clones standing in Cavan's way of a first Ulster SFC final appearance since 2001 and their number 9 admitted that nerves played a part in the team's performance at St Tiernach's Park.

"It was a bit different going in against Monaghan than the two previous games," said Givney. "There was a lot of pressure because it was an Ulster semi-final and you knew that you were only 70 minutes away from reaching a final.

"We played Monaghan in the league and we beat them but when you look back and see how early they had a man sent off you knew that it wasn't going to be the same kind of game. They went on after and won the league final, so we knew what we had to deal with.

"We were a bit nervy going in. In the first-half, we kicked the ball in a lot to the full-forward line and we weren't winning it in there and we didn't play our game plan that we'd brought in the last two games before that. We sort of switched off and we ended up paying the price for it."

After their narrow 1-10 to 0-12 defeat at the hands of the Farney men, Cavan regrouped to put in an impressive performance again against Fermanagh in the qualifiers before the second round draw paired them with Derry.

Hyland's charges were ranked as big outsiders for the clash at Celtic Park, where they would end up delivering the performance of their season to stun the home side after extra-time.

"When we were looking at the draw there was a few teams that we were sort of thinking 'yeah, we definitely have a good chance against them', but when Derry came out it was hard to know what to think of it. They were a good side that were playing a division ahead of us in the league and a lot of people would've rated them as better opposition than us. But, then again, we went in as underdogs and it was sort of a back to normality kind of thing where we were going in as underdogs," said Givney.

"We knew we were after having a good performance against Fermanagh again and it's something that Cavan haven't done in a while - beating the same team twice in the same championship. So it gave us a bit of belief going in against Derry. We knew that if we stuck to the game plan that we had the last few games that it could work well for us and that we were going to be there or thereabouts towards the end of the game.

"In the end, we were probably a bit fortunate to get the draw but we showed in extra-time what we were made of and were delighted to get the win."

Asked whether or not it was the best team performance he had been involved in as a Cavan player, the DIT student said: "It's definitely up there. It was probably one of the most emotional performances. It gave Cavan that chance. Everyone knew that if you won that game you'd a serious chance of getting to an All-Ireland quarter-final, so the stakes were huge and I suppose Cavan teams of the past, when the chips were down like that, they'd usually fold. So it was refreshing to see the young lads come on and have that 'never say die' attitude, so the feeling at the final whistle was just unreal."

The win saw Givney and the majority of his team mates making their first winning appearance at Croke Park in a Cavan jersey, as they dispatched beaten Connacht finalists London after a nervy first-half to set up a quarter-final showdown with Kerry at the same venue on August 4th.

While Givney admitted that the Munster champions were not the first choice opposition that Cavan wanted in the last eight, he maintained that Cavan could have anticipated a worse draw.

"When we were looking at the draw we were kind of hoping for Monaghan," he said. "Everyone sort of wanted to get revenge on them because we felt that we were kind of robbed in the Ulster semi-final but after Monaghan, Kerry would have been our next choice, so everyone was kind of happy enough to get them.

"You are never going to get an easy draw in the All-Ireland quarter-finals anyway, so it was nice to test yourself against one of the best in the country and who better to get than Kerry in Croke Park?"

As the game unravelled, the Kingdom began to pull away from their opponents towards the latter stages of the first-half, opening a 0-11 to 0-2 lead by half-time, before Cavan finally upped their game in the second-half to close the gap to four.

Missed chances in the final quarter, along with an anxious first-half display, had cost Cavan dear in the end.

Givney's assessment was similar to many Breffni supporters after, whom felt that it was a game that Cavan could've won had they performed in the first-half as they did in the second.

"I honestly think that if we'd played the whole game like the way we played in the second-half, we definitely were in with a shout," he stated. "I suppose the big occasion maybe got to us a bit. None of the players would've played in front of such a big crowd before and we were very nervy in the first-half.

"We were giving away handy ball that we'd usually never give away. We were getting turned over in the tackle and bringing the ball into the tackle, so it wasn't the first-half that we wanted. We stepped up in the second-half though and if we'd played that way the whole game we definitely, I think, would've won the game."

2014 is a whole new year, David.

This article appears in the Breffni Blue Cavan Yearbook 2014 which is published in association with hoganstand.com Tweet

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