‘I can’t wait to get back to Arva with another trophy’

IFC final reaction

Damien Donohoe

The last time Arva lifted the Tommy Gilroy cup in 2016, Jonathan McCabe was the Arva captain. This time round, the wing half-forward produced a Man of the Match performance and he told the Anglo-Celt just how he was feeling after the final whistle.

“Lot of relief here, you build up to a final and you just hope that you can get a performance and when you get a performance as a team I suppose there’s a bit of relief as well,” McCabe said.

“As Ciaran (Brady) said up there, it’s just so enjoyable to be going back to Arva with another trophy. You talk about (unbeaten) runs but we don’t think much about runs, silly old cliché but it was a game and another game and as I said, I can’t wait to get back to Arva with another trophy.”

Two goals inside the first four minutes was the foundation for the win over Butlersbridge but with that lead, Arva needed to be prepared to keep it and McCabe explained they were forearmed for that situation by their management team.

“It’s well documented, we talked about it throughout last year several times. I can’t imagine any team being better at preparing teams than Finbar (O’Reilly), Richard (Keith) and Stephen (Smith) because of the work they put in. You always target a quick start but you don’t usually get them.

“Our first two scores were two goals which gave us a huge platform. Then we were sloppy as well with a lot of ball but with the two goals, we always kind of kept them at that five or six-point range and I suppose that was the difference.”

Arva looked superbly fit, sharp and focused for Sunday’s final with no signs of the feared fatigue on show. The former county senior player explained just how they approached their third knock-out championship game in 16 days.

“After Cuchulainns here last week, we took 48 hours to come back and get the bodies right and then we started building and preparing for this. I know people see replays as another game and they might take away energy but we looked at it another way. Finbar, the first thing he said was ‘this replay was a gift’, it was something that we could use to be going into a final better prepared and he talked about his own experiences with replays at intermediate level and going into finals.

“I think a lot of teams that go into a replay (in a semi-final) do go into the final and win it. If you lose here today people would say you’re tired and your legs got you, you start well and people say it was the best thing in the world, the replay. That’s just the way it goes.”

So for the second year in a row, Arva must now focus on an Ulster Championship quarter-final but McCabe is still taking it one step at a time.

“I personally don’t know when we’re out. I’m sure Finbar and the boys will have their work done. We’ll enjoy this for the next week, you know yourself championships are hard won and they have to be celebrated and we’ll definitely do that but we’ll regroup at the weekend and prepare for whoever we have.

“Hopefully that bit of experience at provincial level will stand to us but obviously we are well aware of the step up from junior to intermediate. Last time we played (in the Ulster intermediate championship) in 2016, Pomeroy gave us a lesson up in Omagh so we know the level it is but hopefully we’re better prepared this time to give it a better crack.”