Vaughan: ‘Our own standards had slipped and it was up to us to turn it around’

JFC final preview

Belturbet captain and goalkeeper Cian Vaughan doesn’t give much away on the field and he follows the same approach in interviews.

The number one has been outstanding for the Rorys in recent years but is not the type to get carried away.

“At the start of the year one of our goals was to get to a final, you have to get there first and then you can take it from there and see if you can get over the line. You’ll not win it without getting there,” the Monaghan-based Garda said.

The Rorys had a few difficult seasons and the players got together and decided they had to step up, he revealed.

“We were in three relegation finals in three years under three different managers so we had to do a lot of soul-searching ourselves, it was no-one else’s fault that we were there.

“Our own standards had slipped, our commitment had slipped and it was up to us to turn it around and the only way to do that is hard work. “We met up ourselves even before Mark came on board, back in November, and we decided among the players it was up to us to turn this around. You can’t be pointing fingers at managers any more. In fairness, the lads did put in a huge effort over the winter and now we’ve got to a final, we’ve got to where we wanted to be so it’s obviously paid off.”

There have been a couple of bumps in the road to this point for the Rorys, he agreed.

“There’s always bumps in the road with Belturbet! When you come down to the Junior Championship, you have to find your feet too. We were probably going from setting up defensively against teams to teams setting up defensively against us.

“It takes a bit of getting used to it but thankfully we started to build on it a small bit I suppose.” Vaughan started his career outfield but is well established between the sticks now.

“It’s not that different any more now, it would have been a lot different 20 years ago. I’m in goals probably six years now, outfield seems like a long time ago now… I wouldn’t fancy getting back out the field at this stage!”

Vaughan has been impressed with what he has seen of Knockbride to date.

“We had one eye on them all year even in Division 1, they beat big teams, Kingscourt and Castlerahan, they’re definitely in the final on merit and they’ll probably be going in as heavy favourites. We’re under no illusions about who were coming up against or what they’re about but look, we’re there, we’ll give it a crack and see how we get on.

“We haven’t been to many finals in a long time, it’s 30 years since we won a championship. We were in the Intermediate final in ’19 and now in ’24 in a junior final, it has given things a lift.

It’s great to see young people getting on board and getting their flags out and hopefully that will give them a lift going forward, that’s the biggest thing.”

The emergence of some talented young players has helped spread the scoring load.

“We were probably known as a low-scoring team and probably are a low-scoring team but we have different lads popping up with two or three scores a game, which is something we haven’t had for a couple of years and it’s a big help.”

Has the underdogs’ mantle helped Belturbet as they prepare for the final?

“It has and it hasn’t, traditionally we would have seen ourselves as better off as underdogs but we are where we are and we’ll see where we get on.”