Carlow’s Nevin yearns for the big breakthrough

LIKE every championship, this summer begins with the weekend of the lesser lights.

Although Westmeath and Laois are hardly third-rate county teams, their opponents this week certainly are. Take Carlow, who offer the only resistance to Westmeath getting another chance to end their neighbourly jinx in the quarter-finals.

Johnny Nevin has been kicking ball with Carlow for nearly a decade now, has played on teams fingered by the public as the potential breakthrough team and has seen all the promise evaporate. This week, he is saying the same thing he has been saying for years before Carlow's championship opener we would be hopeful and out to do our best.

In weaker counties, the problems aren't just lack of resources, but that some of the raw material doesn't make itself available. Nevin is a rare creature in Carlow football, as he has played throughout his 20s. But the number of faces he has seen passing through in that time tells its own story.

"There is a massive turnover every year in Carlow. On Sunday, we will be without eight of the team that played in last year's championship. Because of that, we have had to blood a lot of young players," Nevin says.

"If you are losing seven or eight players from your team, it is very hard to be going anywhere, especially in a small county like Carlow. You need continuity and cohesion in the panel. Continuity is the thing, because if you are looking at five or six inexperienced lads in the team every year, it makes it very hard. The turnover of players year after year is the biggest difficulty county managers face in Carlow.

"There have been years when I thought we were on the verge of a breakthrough. We pushed Kildare to a few points two years ago, and it looked like we had a solid base. But when it came to the winter again, players didn't want to go through the whole inter-county thing again. You are always hopeful, but you do get frustrated.

"If you look at the club scene, I would put club football in Carlow against any in the country. But there are some players who can go out and kick 12 points in a club game and are not interested in putting in the effort to play at county level. People have often wondered why Carlow's club success has never translated, but the interest among some of the best players doesn't seem to be there."

Nevin has never lacked for interest. This year saw him try his hand at both codes, and while he is recognised as the best defensive hurler within Carlow, he has decided to concentrate on the footballers this week.

Football courses through his blood. He is currently one of three full-time coaches in the county, with special responsibility for under-age players.

Carlow hope to follow Westmeath's lead; make a sturdy under-age structure and hope success springs from that. Already there are signs it might be working. In last year's U21 Leinster championship, Carlow got trounced by Meath, 5-17 to 0-2. This year Meath only scraped by them. Nevin looks towards this weekend's opponents as the example.

"If you look at the Westmeath team, they are flying again after going through the league unbeaten. But most of those lads have been playing together since minor or under-21 and there is a continuity flowing through the team, they know each other's game so well.

"They have that winning mentality, but they also have a team mentality, a real team mentality, because they have been at each other's side since they were 16, 17. That is what we are hoping to instil in Carlow."

WESTMEATH: A Lennon; D Heavin, D Gavin, K Henson; B Morley, D Healy, D Kilmartin;R O'Connell, M Flanagan; F Wilson, S Colleary, J Conroy; JP Casey, G Dolan, D Dolan.

CARLOW: J Clarke, C McCarthy, B Farrell, V Fleming, J Hayden, S O'Brien, B English, T Walsh, W Power, J Nevin, M Carpenter, J Kavanagh, S Rae, J McGrath, P Nolan.