‘Old man’ McVeety enjoying leading new-look Crosserlough

Paul Fitzpatrick

By any stretch of the imagination, Crosserlough captain Dara McVeety (25) is not old. Yet in the current dressing-room, he's almost grandfatherly.

Maybe this correspondent is reaching old age but adult football teams do seem to be growing younger by the year, a trend, McVeety stated on Sunday evening, he has noticed of late, too.

"I am getting older now, I'm 25 and the young lads are calling me an old man!" he laughed. "It seems to be the way alright, you could see it with Mullahoran today and the young lads stepping up."

Much of the conversation with the Cavan senior forward revolves around his role in the side and their age profile, which is possibly unprecedented. When Ramor won the championship two years ago, they were seen as the youngest side to do so since Cavan Gaels broke through in the early 2000s but Crosserlough's Class of 2018 are younger again, with only Paul McEvoy (27) of the starting side last Saturday older than McVeety himself.

Reaching a final so soon - it is five years since they were even in a semi - has come ahead of the curve, McVeety admitted.

"Yeah, it probably was, considering the minor team that we have been sort of relying on only played in the minor final two years ago.

"If we were planning ahead, we probably would have said that but at the same time, I’ve always said, if you’re old enough, you’re good enough. In fairness to those young lads, they’ve really stepped up.

"It was hard to predict at what age they would mature but they seem to have matured a lot even in the last few months. It’s brilliant, I think the average age of our team is only about 21 or something like that. I’m the second oldest on the team. We are loving it at the minute, it’s really enjoyable and we’re just looking forward to the game." 

The short run-in to the county final - a fortnight is the norm, this year it is just eight days - could be a blessing, the Crosserlough captain reckons.

"I think it's no harm, we have a very young team and nerves are a huge factor and will be a factor so I'm happy enough with a shorter run-in, it's probably better than two weeks with the hype building."

But while young legs and the pace and energy they carry with them can be formidable, there is always the danger of inconsistency, of little things tripping them up on the big day. Crosserlough have been a little streaky to date but they are on an upward curve.

"It has been well documented that we have been up and down. That was one of the things that we targetted, that we were going to put in consistent performances. I don't know if we have put in a fully consistent performance yet, it's down to different factors, the maturity of the team, not taking chances, little things like that. 

"But I do think we're improving a lot. This Sunday will be our eighth game and it's a brilliant experience for these lads to play eight championship matches. I think we're improving with every day, in the Cootehill game we were very naive, we made silly mistakes but when it came to the quarter-finals, we didn't make those mistakes."

The two semi-finals against Gowna provided further evidence of this. On day one, the Lough were 0-5 to 0-0 ahead but ended up hanging on for a draw. In the replay, they came from behind and could have been out of sight but, again, had a nervy few minutes on the home stretch.

The sense from McVeety is that he is not bothered how they won, just that they did.

"We started the first game at 100 miles an hour and it was probably unrealistic to try to maintain that for the whole game because we really went for it. Gowna got a few scores then and got back into the game. The goal really brought Gowna back into it and stunned us and I think if the game had gone on longer, Gowna were pushing harder at the end than we were in fairness.

"We were just lucky to get out of there and then the second day I just felt we created more chances than them, adapted to the conditions, got a few lucky breaks. They got the goal earlier and we responded quickly, we got two points fairly fast after that which took the momentum of the goal away.

"We got the lead just before half-time but in the second half we missed about five gilt-edged chances from the start, it made it very hard for ourselves and made it very stressful there towards the end. But at least we got over the line.

"Gowna are a brilliant team, they never went away and made it really, really hard for us and any shot we were taking was under pressure which is probably why we found it so hard against them."

McVeety will be at the front of the parade on Sunday but, he says in earnest, there will be no shortage of leaders marching behind him.

"The young lads are driven, they're not afraid to stand up. We have a great team morale and everyone's opinion is respected. The young lads are not waiting for someone else to do it and you could see that when Gowna got the sucker punch goals against us, it was the young lads who stood up and got the scores after it. 

"We have lots of leaders all over the field, we are a young team but that doesn't mean we lack leadership."

As for Castlerahan, unsurprisingly McVeety heaped praise on them.

"I think Castlerahan are an excellent team. we struggled with them in the championship last year. They bring an intensity that not a lot of teams can cope with, they have pace and strength and they can break the line at speed. And they have excellent players and very experienced players, which we don't have."

It will all come down to who copes better with all that a county final can throw it them. 

"We know the occasion will be a factor for us because no-one has been there before," he says.

Well, how can you prepare for that?

"I don't know!" he replies, with an exasperated laugh. 

"I suppose you can try and imagine it as much as you can but you can't beat being there. It just depends how we react on the day. I hope we react positively and enjoy the occasion but there are going to be some lads, as there will be on the Castlerahan team, who won't play well and will let the occasion get to them. That sort of stuff happens but I just hope that overall we can react well and perform."