Problems with developing players mean senior decline is inevitable

Opinion

The veteran group of Cavan footballers have given the county great service but stalled underage development means a period in the doldrums now looks inevitable, writes PAUL FITZPATRICK.

In the grim aftermath of the loss to Meath on Sunday, supporters are alarmed, wondering what has gone wrong. On the one hand, the Cavan management and players have to take the rap; the performance just was not acceptable. At times, the mistakes were nigh on comical.

On the other, though, some are beginning to wake up to the deeper malaise which is evident in the county.

The context is important, so here goes. While Cavan, under the old ‘one and done’ championship system, did go without a win in championship football from 1988 to 1994 inclusive, they were still relatively competitive in that era.

There were some decent league campaigns, a spell in Division 1, a one-point National League semi-final defeat to Dublin and some narrow championship losses in that seven-year run, including two replays.

Where the county truly bottomed out was from 2009 to 2012 inclusive, as the team toiled in Division 3 of the league, finishing fifth three times and, in 2012, sixth, winning just 12 of 28 matches in the third tier. The county had enjoyed zero underage success from 1996 onwards and the slump that followed was inevitable.

In championship, it was even more grim, with a series of what supporters tend to term The Worst Evers. In 2009, Cavan beat Fermanagh by a point and then were out-played by two Division 4 sides in Antrim and Wicklow.

The following year, came a first home championship loss to the Erne men in almost a century, a comeback win by a point over Wicklow and a humiliating 1-19 to 0-4 reversal against Cork.

It got worse. In 2011, Cavan were beaten by nine points at home to Donegal and lost by 11, again at home, against Division 4 Longford. And, in 2012, a six-point defeat to Donegal, another come-from-behind win over Division 4 Fermanagh and a dreadful 3-20 to 1-9 loss against Kildare, with the whole circus around Seanie Johnston, who had transferred to the Lilywhites in controversial circumstances, adding a GUBU element to the whole caper.

It's fair to say, then, that the fortunes of the Cavan senior football team had never been at a lower ebb than they were at the tail end of that season. But, by then, something was stirring.

The minors and U21s both ended long waits for Ulster titles in 2011, as the progressive plan put in place by Games Development Manager Nicholas Walsh and the staff and volunteers spectacularly came to fruition.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of those young lads from those 2011 minors and U21s. They had reached adulthood at a time when Cavan were at an all-time low, having gone, for the first time, 14 years without an Ulster title in any grade of football and with the senior team on its knees.

Better would follow in the subsequent three seasons as Cavan’s stranglehold on the Ulster U21 Championship continued. After that, however, there was a notable decline in the county’s fortunes – more of which anon.

“This group,” Ronan Carolan, a selector, told us on the pitch after that maiden U21 success, “will change Cavan football.”

And they did. After an unprecedented barren spell, Cavan won six Ulster titles in the 10 years from 2011 on and that group of players - 2011 minors and U21s - backboned them all. And many of those players are still not just playing but leading the Cavan senior team, keeping on in hope of further success.

It brings to mind Tom MacIntyre’s anecdote about meeting the great Big Tom O’Reilly on Sandymount Strand in the late 1950s, long after Tom had retired, and witnessing him silently kicking ball on his own on the vast beach, “still holding a candle, still leading his troops, in search of the dream”.

What have been Cavan’s most significant wins in the years since those minor breakthroughs?

Derry in 2013, under Terry Hyland, comes to mind. Alan O’Mara, Killian Clarke, Dara McVeety, Killian Brady, Niall Murray and Jack Brady played that day.

The following year, Cavan escaped Division 3 at last with a round-five win over Longford; Killian Brady, Turloc Mooney, Gearoid McKiernan, Niall McDermott and Paul O’Connor all featured.

A brilliant win over Galway in 2016 secured promotion to Division 1 for the first time in donkey’s years; 14 of the minor and U21 medallists from 2011 to 2014 were on the field on that occasion – the aforementioned Clarke, ‘Gunner’, McVeety, McKiernan, Brady and Murray plus Padraig Faulkner, Jason McLoughlin, Ciaran Brady, Conor Moynagh, Liam Buchanan, Michael Argue, Chris Conroy and Conor Gilsenan.

In 2018, Cavan again achieved promotion to the top flight with a round-seven win over Tipperary; eight graduates played, including two more in Enda Flanagan and Conor Madden.

When Cavan defeated Armagh in a replay to reach a first Ulster final in 18 years in June of 2019, 10 of that group featured. The following year, when they won Ulster in the depths of December, 10 of the Class of 2011-14 got game time, including one of the outstanding players in Gerry Smith.

And here we are, five years on, and still that group are Cavan’s main men. Against Monaghan in the opening round, there were seven playing; against Meath, there were eight.

For all that the Cavan supporters tend to be negative and, absolutely, it is easy to construct an argument that the great U21 and minor sides of the turn of the last decade didn’t achieve what the fans and the group themselves would have hoped for. There were relegations and plenty of disappointments, including two poor losses in the last fortnight.

But it must be noted that the fingerprints of that group of players have been all over every good day Cavan have enjoyed since they first came into the team as youngsters from 2012 on.

In fact, grim as it is, this has been a bountiful era when judged in a historical context. The last time Cavan won six Ulster titles in 10 seasons was between 1947 and ’56.

Cavan have been blessed with this group of players – but nothing lasts forever. It must be of serious concern to the county board and the Coaching & Games department in particular, whose brief includes developing a pathway for players, that Cavan are still so reliant on this group of about 10 players who are now over the 30-mark.

The stats don’t lie – Cavan’s ranking at underage level in Ulster has slipped from first or second to around seventh, only ahead of Fermanagh and Antrim, who between them have won three Ulster titles at any grade in the last 50 seasons.

How did this change come about? It happened, like Hemingway’s famous comment about how he succumbed to bankruptcy, “gradually then suddenly”. There were Ulster minor final appearances in 2015 and 2017 and a run to the All-Ireland semi-final the latter year and the U20s made a final in 2022, losing by a point to would-be All-Ireland champions Tyrone.

Otherwise, Cavan haven’t come close to even an Ulster final appearance. While the odd outstanding player will still emerge, it is highly unlikely at this point that Cavan will have enough quality to replace this group, most of whom have made over 100 senior appearances, when they inevitably start to retire in the next year or two.

So, there is a crisis coming down the tracks. After the result against Meath, Cavan are facing an uphill battle to stay in Division 2.

Their fate could well rest on the round four game against Westmeath, managed by Dermot McCabe, who was joint-manager of the aforementioned 2011 minors and was appointed Cavan’s full-time Games Development Manager in late 2013, tasked with overseeing the development of players among other roles.

Remember the pathway we mentioned earlier? It’s safe to say it doesn’t include a detour – and maybe even an extended one – in Division 3 or, God help us, Division 4. Defeat at the hands of McCabe’s Westmeath could well herald such a demotion, with the break-up of the team to follow. It would also be a major embarrassment for Cavan to lose in such circumstances, were it to happen.

Seven years have passed since a talented Cavan U20 team were slaughtered by Donegal; on that occasion, when the local media raised questions about our structures, the board circled the wagons, rejecting the criticism in its entirety and stating at a meeting that our underage system was among the best in Ireland. Results since suggest otherwise.

The county board recently published a long-awaited five-year Strategic Plan in which the stated targets include winning three Ulster titles in the next five years. Let’s be honest: given the age profile of the current squad, their standing in the National League and a stuttering underage system, does anyone really believe that a county which has won one Ulster title in the last 10 years will win three times that in half the time going forward?

For such a radical upturn in fortunes to occur, equally radical change is needed but as of yet, the board has not announced how these goals will be achieved. If there is a plan, they’re keeping it quiet at present.

The reality is that the loss to Meath on Sunday exposed troubling weaknesses in the Cavan senior squad. Several of the experienced players are under-performing; few of the younger players look comfortable at that level. The easy thing is to blast the manager - and the manager is accountable, for sure - and slate the players. But it can’t always be the manager’s fault - Cavan have been down that road too many times.

It’s clear there is a sharp decline coming and it is now too late to avoid it; all that can be done at this point is ameliorate it to the greatest extent possible.

There are plenty of good and capable people involved with Cavan county board who are working hard but there has been a drift in priorities. We may be best in class in some areas but we are well off the pace in the truly important one: bringing through players and teams.

There must now be a real concentration on bringing through footballers rather than infrastructural and ancillary projects, most of which are worthy in their own right but should never become the main focus.

The apathy among some delegates is stark, too, and has even been bemoaned publicly by officers. They must step up.

It’s important to remember, in the depressing week that’s in it, that the legacy of that 2011-14 group will be that they came into a weak squad with a poor culture and helped drag the county out of the abyss.

Sadly, it seems a racing certainty that even if performances improve in this campaign, Cavan will end up in the lower divisions again for an extended period before long.

And in a county where football is far and away the dominant sporting and social pursuit, that’s a terribly poor reflection on everyone involved.