OPINION: Is Cavan football still in the dark ages?

For Jason O’Reilly, scorer of 48 goals for Cavan, the infamous 2006 loss to Waterford marked the low-point of his career.
In an interview with the Sunday Independent a few years back, ‘Jayo’ recalled the Waterford manager visiting the home team’s dressing-room after the match, sportingly urging Cavan to “keep at it”.
“That put the final nail in it,” Jason said.
For Waterford in 2006 at senior inter-county level, read Castlerahan in 2019. Of course, with all due respect, there is a world of difference between the standing of the Déise footballers almost 15 years ago and the champions of Donegal, Naomh Conaill of Glenties, now but the Cavan champions’ loss was equally as crushing for supporters of the game in this county.
And the reason is this. Excuses could be made for most of the Cavan champions’ losses in Ulster in recent years but not this one. The Ballyjamesuff men were at home, had three weeks to prepare and, injury-wise, were at full strength, bar one starting player, albeit a key man in David Wright.
And Castlerahan are the best team in Cavan, of that there is no doubt. They have won the league and championship double two years in succession and have reached five county finals in succession. They are cool under pressure and experienced. Whatever way we measure it, they are out on their own.
Yet the Glenties men, running on fumes, blew them away. 
The Donegal team won the first 25 minutes by 1-5 to 0-2 before gassing.In the third quarter, they out-scored the home team by 0-5 to 0-1 before again running out of legs as their intense run of matches caught up with them.
While Castlerahan were resting, recuperating, coming down from winning their own county final and refocussing on what was for all intents and purposes another one, Naomh Conaill were in the trenches against Gaoth Dobhair in a three-game marathon county final series which was, at times, poisonous and attritional and would have taken a heavy emotional, as well as physical toll.
And when it was won, the main street of their well-appointed high-country town was illuminated by bonfires when they finally arrived home at 1am on Thursday morning, about 80 hours before their team bus – emblazoned with ‘Donegal champions 2019’ – set the Sat Nav for Kingspan Breffni.
Before that, though, there was a lot of partying done – social media was lit up with videos of the Naomh Conaill players and supporters drinking the night, and the day, away.
And then they came to Breffni and won. No fuss, no drama.
And the parallels with that Waterford debacle arrived post-match. The game won, Glenties manager Martin Regan happily answered a few questions for the pressmen.
“It was difficult to prepare,” he admitted.  
“We had a great night Wednesday night and an enjoyable day Thursday. We made sure we enjoyed winning the county championship, then Friday we started looking at Castlerahan.”
Let that sink in for a moment. What the winning manager was openly stating was that, when the hangovers subsided, they briefly had a look at the opposition, figured out how to beat them and then got the job done. How depressing a vista that is for all involved in football in this county.
Then again, we probably should have expected it. After a decade in which Cavan went from the bottom of Division 3 to a couple of seasons in Division 1 of the National League, won four Ulster U21 titles, an Ulster minor title and a MacRory Cup, our senior club teams are still miles off the pace against the best in the province and, if we’re honest, the manner of the losses to Donegal and Tyrone in last year’s championship suggest that our county team have a long, long way to go, too.
In a neat piece of symmetry, the decade started with Kingscourt losing to Naomh Conaill and ended with Castlerahan experiencing the same fate. Both times, the Cavan champions were at home.
It’s interesting to note the comments of Kingscourt captain Alan Clarke following that 2010 loss.
“We have a serious lack of [physical preparation] in Cavan. It’s plain to be seen we are not strong enough, whether it be Kingscourt, Cavan Gaels, the Cavan team or any other team around the county, we really have to up our training, it’s just not there,” said Clarke.
“We’re still in the dark ages. It’s not going to happen over night but we really have to work on that. I suppose it’s the whole way throughout Cavan, we are very small and weak.”
All these years on, has anything changed? Dara McVeety, who has been one of the leading footballers in the county for a few years now, made some interesting comments in a fascinating interview on the WeAreCavan podcast recently.
Asked about why Cavan have lagged behind, McVeety said: “I just think the likes of Donegal and Tyrone, their underage strength and conditioning just seems to be ahead of us. It’s not a criticism of our lads at all but the younger lads coming into their teams just look to have a bit more strength and conditioning work done than us. They have an advantage on that front.”
McVeety did make the point that Cavan’s full-time strength and conditioning coach André Quinn is doing good work and that we are closing the gap, but the gulf remains nonetheless.
“It’s not like Tyrone and Donegal are standing still,” he said. “They are continually developing and improving but we have to do it faster than them if we are going to catch them, we have to be doing everything we can to make sure we are catching up with them.”
Winter has arrived and it seems we are still very much, as Clarke said nine years ago, in the dark ages.
When will the light shine though?