Canavan has skills to avoid Johnno’s fate

EIGHT years ago today, Peter Canavan sat in the lounge of a Dublin hotel to catch the end of the rugby World Cup final.

Only two months earlier Canavan had furiously pumped Sam Maguire above his head up in the Hogan Stand, and now he found himself watching Martin Johnson experience that similar marriage of pure elation and relief as he held the Webb Ellis up towards the Sydney sky.

Canavan was just after coming out of a meeting about the launch of a couple of books documenting Tyrone’s All-Ireland breakthrough, and while it would be wrong to say he was rooting for England, he did have a certain admiration for that England team and Johnson which compelled him to delay his return to Tyrone that day.