Lions capture Allstar Cavanagh

TYRONE midfield star Sean Cavanagh has been signed by top Australian Rules club, Brisbane Lions.

Current Allstar Cavanagh faces a crunch game tomorrow against Armagh in the replay of the Ulster Senior Football Championship final, and Tyrone GAA officials said yesterday that the Moy clubman had committed to the county side for the summer, but his sporting future appears to lie down under.

Ironically, the Tyrone County Board has been strongly opposed to links between the GAA and AFL over the past decade.

Two years ago the Kiltycolghe rclub submitted a motion to Congress that the International Rules series should be ended “in light of one of those particularly viscous starts to one of the games,” but the motion never made it to the Congress floor.

Tyrone also had a policy of not putting players forward for the underage test series, with county chairman Liam McNelis saying: “The policy of Tyrone county board was we would put forward no names to take part in the underage series and if any players were selected, they could go themselves.

“That has been our policy for the past five or six years.”

The reasoning behind the policy was to stop young players being poached by Aussie Rules.

It’s understood that Gerard Sholly, a former recruiter for the Collingwood club and the top AFL scout for Irish footballers, played a key role in signing the Tyrone midfielder, having been employed by the Lions in April to investigate the possibility of signing an Irish player.

The Lions, who are currently ninth in the AFL Premiership, sent club scouts to Ireland in the past week, and they met Cavanagh, 22, while also taking in last Sunday’s Leinster final.

Cavanagh, a qualified accountant who recently took up a two-year contract in his uncle’s accountancy practice in Dungannon, was a key member of Ireland’s international rules squad that defeated the Australian team in both Tests last year. He’s likely to play in the return series in Perth and Melbourne in October.

Cavanagh becomes the fourth high-profile GAA player to sign professional forms with an Aussie Rules club since 1999.

Kerryman Tadhg Kennelly has succeeded in becoming a first-choice half-back at the Sydney Swans since joining six years ago as an 18-year-old, while Cork’s Ó hAilpín brothers - Setanta and Aisake - are currently plugging away in the rookie ranks at the Carlton Blues.

Coincidentally, Cavanagh was named Young Footballer of the Year in 2003, when Setanta Ó hAilpín was named Young Hurler of the Year.