'There's always another level for teams to go to'

Interview

PAUL FITZPATRICK sat down with Finbar O’Reilly, who charted his coaching journey and opened up on the ‘hurtful rumours’ surrounding his departure from Arva .

It’s only in the last couple of months that Finbar O’Reilly has had time to take stock. His coaching journey has taken him all over the country, winning county leagues and championships, Ulster Colleges championships and, topping it all, an All-Ireland final victory against Kerry opposition in Croke Park.

Having stepped away from Arva after an odyssey the likes of which has not been seen in Cavan football before, O’Reilly has taken some down time and allowed himself a chance to reflect. St Patrick’s Day marked 10 years since he coached St Patrick’s College to a first MacRory Cup title in 43 years - it’s as good a place to start as any.

“Ah, it was a magical time,” he recalled.

“I think a lot of people knew we had a good team coming and they had been successful in previous competitions, but the MacRory is the toughest of them all, and there were no signs of any success at MacRory Cup level in decades. We really set out with huge ambition to win it from the outset.

That St Pat’s squad was a special group, with a fixation on winning the ultimate prize in Ulster schools football.

“The year before (2014) we were close. That team could have won it. We were beaten by a very good Maghera team in a semi-final in Armagh. We put in a massive effort in preparation for that campaign, and in truth that laid the foundation for what was ultimately going to be required to win this.

“We were really, really disappointed in 2014 in the aftermath of that semi final – we had injuries and we had lots of stuff going on in the background that didn't help, and we fell short by two points.

“Maghera went on to win it, they also reached the Hogan Cup final and they were beaten by Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne, Dingle.

“So we saw that Maghera team going on, which sort of just twisted the knife on you a little bit. We had a lot of the boys back the following year again, and we firmly set our sights on doing the business. We knew it was going to be a mammoth task but we were prepared to do whatever it took. Failure wasn’t an option.

“In 2015 we knew that we had the team in some regards, but we'd lost a lot of players from the team that had played right up through the younger competitions. We had lost Ryan Connolly, Ronan O’Reilly, Darragh Gannon, three brilliant forwards. Paul Sexton, Jason Rahill, Mark Fegan, they all were gone that year.

“But you had younger boys like Darragh Kennedy, Conor Smith, Ryan O’Neill, Luke Fortune, Ted (Donohoe), Patrick O’Reilly, they all really stepped up. They wouldn't have been with that squad up through the ranks, except Thomas Edward at Rannafast, so they really matured fast and came to the fore in a big way that year.”

“In terms of preparation, we worked exceptionally hard. We had early morning training sessions, gym sessions, team meetings, video meetings, everything geared towards getting the boys up to the required level.

“The hurt and disappointment from losing the semi-final the previous year was driving everybody on within the group. And to be fair, we reached a serious level of performance. We won the quarter-final by 10 points, the semi-final by five points and the final itself by 10 points. It was a great day for the school and for those players in particular. It is a day they will always remember.

“Many of them have gone on to play senior football for their clubs and also senior inter-county football for Cavan, which ultimately is the main aim.

“Looking back on it now 10 years later, it was a very special bunch of young men who achieved something very unique. Only the people who were involved with that particular team will understand the level of commitment and effort that went into it. Fr Kevin Fay and Shane Fitzpatrick played major roles on that management team also. They are two very special men.”

Coming up against the leading coaches in the powerhouse northern schools was, he says, “a huge, huge learning curve”.

“Little things. For example, Cian McManus would have been one of our top players, and in 2014, Cian was centre half-back and he would have been a driving force for us and would have been a real leader of that team. In the semi-final, Maghera put a man marker on him. And Cian ran over the sideline to me after 10 minutes, and he says, they're marking me. ‘This guy has no interest in playing, he's marking me’.

“That was something I'd never encountered at that stage. Your centre half-back being man marked! You just hadn't dealt with that previously… there were other bits and pieces you picked up on. You learned and you moved on better from the experience.”

Key to winning that MacRory was the fact that many of the panel completed a sixth year in the school, which is relatively unusual. St Pat’s are generally the youngest side in the competition and levelling that up was huge.

“A good few of the boys did an extra year, some of them did TY, some of them repeated fifth year, and two of them repeated the Leaving Cert. I'd say nine or 10 of the team did a sixth year, and that is so important when trying to at least level the playing field against the northern schools especially.”

After the MacRory, O’Reilly took over his home club, Lacken, winning the Division 1 league title in 2016. It was Lacken’s first ever senior league title and first title at senior level since 1908.  Covid – and probably bad timing, given they had won the Leinster Championship not long before – disrupted things when he took over Mullinalaghta, even though they did win the Senior League and the Leader Cup. Then came a short spell with Kingscourt Stars, who were beaten in the Senior Championship semi-final, and then, Arva.

When he took over the Longford-Leitrim border side, O’Reilly found them low on confidence - they had been promoted to Division 1 the year before but had lost the Junior Championship final by a point.

“That defeat to Drumlane was a big blow to them. They had got relegated the year before (2021), that was a really bad year with injuries, and a few boys were away, emigrating and different things, and they just dropped down, which can happen, but they would have hoped to come straight back up.

“They didn't. Stephen Smith, Richard Keith and myself came in and I suppose we found, yes, the players were low, but they were highly ambitious. The immediate goal was to stay in Division 1 and to win the Cavan Junior Championship.”

While publicly the players and management dismissed talk of an All-Ireland, privately, they felt it was achievable from early on.

“Yes, we set goals. The All-Ireland was mentioned - there’s no doubt about that. We felt if we could get out of Cavan we could kick on from there. But there are a lot of building blocks that need to be put firmly in place before you can achieve any of the above.”

Playing Division 1 league football allowed O’Reilly and his management to tinker with different tactical approaches against quality opposition.

“In Division 1, playing against the top teams in the county, we just couldn’t go out man-to-man and play brave football. We set up in different ways and coached various strategies and set-ups to deal with different types of opposition. We went through the Division 1 campaign and stayed up, that was a good boast for us.

“So going into that championship of 2023, we were tactically sharp. Some games we went man-to-man and pressed; in others, we dropped off. It all depended. We had different strategies in place to help us through Cavan and, hopefully, into Ulster and beyond.”

Cavan teams have shown they can compete strongly at Ulster level but not so much at All-Ireland level in recent decades. What was the difference when Arva got to that stage?

“Mentality and preparation – 100pc. Once we got over Knockbride in the county final, our mentality was going to determine how far we would go. We navigated our way through Ulster, played Wandsworth in the All-Ireland quarter-final and took care of them. Then we played Milltown from Kildare in the semi-final and got through that. In the final against Listowel, the deciding factor was mentality, no question about it.

“We had one week to prepare for the All-Ireland final. We beat Milltown on a Saturday afternoon in the Downs and were playing Listowel the following Sunday. We met in the Cavan Crystal Hotel at 8am the next morning, pool work, recovery, analysis meetings etc. We had a lot of footage of Listowel, we had done our homework, we knew what to expect. We knew it was going to be a serious test. We knew who to go after. The boys took a lot of confidence from that preparation. We discussed everything - Croke Park, the police escort, the bus, the logistics - so the lads could get their heads around it and be ready for it all.

“Then it just became another game. Game 13 of the year, routine. The same as every other game since the Cavan championship quarter-finals.”

And yet, Arva still found themselves in the dressing-room at Croke Park a few points behind at the break.

“In the first half, we were three or four points down at half-time. We weren’t taking our chances. Listowel were clinical, we weren’t. We were shooting into the Hill and missed quite a few that we should have taken.

“The general feeling in the dressing room at half time was 'we’re in an All-Ireland final here and we’re not going for it. Why not? Why are we holding back? What are we afraid of?’ There was a sense of ‘we’re not showing our true selves’. We made a few adjustments tactically on our kick-out set-up and that was that.

“Second half, you saw a different Arva. The lads stepped up, Listowel began to wobble, Arva smelled blood. Mentality again. That was the shift.”

Breaking down those mental barriers is one of the most difficult things in sport - but they can be overcome, day by day.

“Discipline is huge. Discipline in training, discipline not to miss training, to be there on time, to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Discipline to the game planning. It all adds up, and it all accumulates when the pressure in games is really on. A lot of teams have a set standard of what they believe is the required level in terms of commitment, training and overall preparation because it’s what they’ve always done, but there is another level, there is always another level.

“We pushed Arva well past their comfort zone. That’s where you really make gains and grow as a team. We were fortunate enough to be getting results, winning games, confidence and belief grew from that.”

The scenes in Croke Park and at the homecoming in Arva will never be forgotten. A few months later, they went again, this time aiming for an Intermediate Championship.

“The following year, to an extent, the hard bit was done. The culture had been set in place, now it was about keeping the boys on track. Everyone expected Arva to slow up because it had been such a long run over the winter but we turned that into a strength.

“I suppose we got a lot of our pre-season in during the All-Ireland run, then we took seven or eight weeks off and came back in mid-March. We kept things ticking over, didn’t flog the lads and stepped it up whenever we felt it was necessary. That kept them fresh.

“Championships are never easy won. Bailieborough gave us a real test in the quarter final. We were missing Kevin (Bouchier) and Peter (Morris), two big players. That weakened us as a unit but we got through it.

“Both games against Cuchulainns in the semi-final were battles, we could have been caught the first day. The second day, we were always in front, without ever being out of sight but we played well. We were coming back to ourselves by then.”

Arva ran in two early goals in the final against Butlersbridge and were not going to be caught from there, although those majors were not something they targeted as such.

“No, not really. That’s just how it happened. I think Butlersbridge might have gambled somewhat on us pulling a corner-forward back as a sweeper. When we didn’t do that, they were left quite open at the back and we capitalised. Barry (Donnelly) got a goal, Holla (Ciaran Brady) got one too, it was a dream start, and it was fantastic for everyone involved to win back-to-back county championships ”

Arva went on to beat Drumgath from Down and a fancied Magheracloone in the Ulster Championship but eventually came up short by a point in the Ulster final against Ballinderry, who themselves were subsequently only beaten by a last-minute penalty in the All-Ireland final against Crossmolina.

“We lost the Ulster final and immediately after, we anticipated staying on. That was the feeling. But over the weeks, reality set in. We all had families, commitments. I have a young boy and have just moved house. Richard Keith, (selector) is running a business. Stephen Smith (selector) is a school vice-principal and has a young family. To go senior, we needed full commitment and that wasn’t realistic. So we stepped down, it was a tough decision but the right one.”

It was around then when things took a turn.

“Following on from stepping down as Arva team manager, a lot of false rumours and false stories started to circulate around the place and around the county, stuff that was very, very hurtful to me on a personal level, and hurtful to my family. I’m still very hurt about it.

“It doesn't take much to trigger rumours nowadays but my exit from Arva seemed to spark and trigger a litany of these false rumours.

“It was very, very tough, really… only my family are so supportive, my wife is so supportive and both our extended families have been very supportive towards me during that time but it was difficult.

“And you can't control it, there was no way of controlling anything so stuff just started to spiral. You learn from that experience.”

O’Reilly admits the experience shook him but he is stronger for it. His phone has been hopping with offers from teams, he says, but the time wasn’t right.

“I wanted to be respectful and to be true to the teams that contacted me. You have to be ready to take on these jobs and ready for that challenge.

“For now, well, I'll take a step back and spend time with my family, go watch some games, and watch some training sessions, and watch some other coaches in action and see can I develop myself.”

The Arva journey will always resonate, though.

“I'm a good while involved in football now and some of the best people, whether it be players or administrators or people helping in the background, some of the best people that I have encountered in football are in Arva. There is an amazing community spirit and club spirit in that town.

“The players were unbelievable for me and the people down there were unbelievable for me too, and they'll always be close to my heart. And the journey we went on in 2023 and 2024 was very special indeed for the supporters of Arva, for the players and for the management team.”

When he gets back into coaching, he says, he’ll be more motivated than ever.

“I love working with teams and helping players develop and grow in pursuit of their goals. I will be ready to go again, whenever the time is right. For now, it’s time to invest in some family time and re-charge for the next challenge.”