Graham: 'People's health is more important than football'

Paul Fitzpatrick

In common with the rest of the country, the Cavan senior footballers' best-laid plans have been thrown into disarray following the general shutdown but, says team manager Mickey Graham, the squad are keeping things in perspective.

“We have to look at the wider community and think of all the vulnerable people who are out there. Nobody knows what's going to come of this, the way I look at it is it's sport and at the end of the day, people's health is more important. Sport will still be there in years to come,” Graham told The Anglo-Celt.

News broke late last week that all GAA activity was to be suspended and the Cavan players were immediately notified.

“It was a directive from Croke Park, all counties got the same and the same from the GPA,” said Graham. 

“It was a total lockdown and collective training was to cease as from last Friday. We wouldn't be insured with the county team and neither would club teams so it was quite serious.

“This is probably the first time in history that training bans or out-of-season bans are going to be upheld because of the seriousness of it.”

For now, there is not much the Cavan squad can do in terms of training. The back-room team have put together programmes to allow players to train on their own but other than that, the season is at a standstill.

“André [Quinn, coach] has tailored everybody's programme as regards running so they can do that at home and we've given them as much equipment as we can, conditioning-wise, so that they can be doing bits and pieces, even if it's out in the garden at home. They can be doing certain exercises – at this moment in time, that's all they can really do.

“To be honest, talking to a few of them, they are glad to be doing it because they are bored out of their heads, especially teachers and lads like that who are off work. It's something to keep them focused, that they're not sitting around doing nothing. I think they're all glad that they have a bit of work to be doing in their own time at home.”

Teams have no idea as of yet when the current restrictions will be lifted and are adopting a 'wait and see' approach, said the Cavan Gaels clubman.

“There's no indication at all, we just have to wait and let this pan out over the next couple of weeks before a picture starts to emerge, I'd imagine. I don't think there's any team stupid enough to try and go collective training as regards group sessions because the consequences could be terrible.

“Everybody has family, everybody has parents, everybody has people that can be affected by this. Anybody that would organise collective training would be looking for trouble, players themselves realise that and I don't think they'd let it happen to be honest.”