Cassidy laments bad old days
Featuring footage of their 2002 All-Ireland quarter-final battles against Dublin, they also included an interview with a frustrated Mickey Moran after he stepped down as manager following the replay defeat.
“The standards you have to aspire to win, you have to be totally focused and totally committed,” said the Derry man. “Some people didn’t reach those standards.”
Moran was, of course, speaking about the players with possibly a reference to the 20 or so who didn’t make it back onto the team bus home following the first day draw with Dublin.
Kevin Cassidy was one of those marked as láthair. He would finish the season as an All Star but the bright lights of Dublin city called him that Bank Holiday Monday night. Just 20 at the time, he was going to live a little.
As it turned out, the replay didn’t come for another 12 days but they were already tarred the losers in the blame game.
“If you look back at that game, we had the game won and we threw it away,” rues Cassidy about the draw. “Then everyone knows what happened that night... we stayed about and messed about and then got destroyed in the replay.”
Cassidy and his team-mates were young and immature at the time. He knows that now.
“The likes of myself, Colm (McFadden) and Christy (Toye), we were only 19 or 20 years of age.
“We were all college students and that’s all we knew at that time.
“You look back now, it’s a pity we didn’t hold it together and give the Dubs a better game the second day.”
Aside from finally winning an Ulster title, if there’s one thing Cassidy is delighted with this year it’s that Donegal have dismissed the perception of them as wild boys.
“Even last year or the year before people still kept bringing up this party image of us and all the rest.
“If you saw our training sessions you’d see how much of a commitment these boys have given all year.
“It’s good for the younger lads that they this baggage is gone. Hopefully, it stays gone.”
Cassidy’s partying days are few and far between now. Although he still enjoys a sing and a dance (see YouTube for his rendition of Depeche Mode’s I Just Can’t Get Enough at Donegal’s victorious Ulster homecoming), it’s domestic bliss for him right now after the arrival of twins Nia and Aoife last October. They were the reason why he opted to hang up the boots at the age of 29 at the end of last season. He didn’t want to land his wife Sarah with all the duties.
He didn’t legislate for Jim McGuinness’ refusal to take no for an answer, though.
“If you talk to Jim you know how he operates!” laughs Cassidy. “The first phone-call lasted about an hour and a half. I just told him I’d love to give him the commitment but unfortunately I can’t. If you know Jim, there are a lot of long silences. There’s no such thing as him accepting what he doesn’t want to hear so he kept going and going. What he did was describe these days — playing in Croke Park, playing in Ulster finals — so it was easy to go back to somebody who was telling you that you were going to be playing in those games.
“Once I decided to come back it was all about getting myself back into physical shape to be able to compete.”
Sarah gave her blessing and that was that. McGuinness affords him some leeway providing he makes up for it, while he gets special privileges at the morning sessions.
“I normally start about 9am. The other boys are on a 7.30 start but I get a later start. I normally get up with the wee ones at 7.30 and I feed them and change them and once they go down for their nap I go down to the field then so it’s working out all right.”
How thankful he is for both McGuinness’ stubbornness and Sarah’s understanding. But for them, he knows exactly where he’d be this year — banging down the manager’s door.
But is there a bit of him that regrets not having McGuinness as a manager earlier in his career? Does he feel envious of his younger team-mates like Michael Murphy and Mark McHugh?
“I said to a good friend of mine there during the week that I wished Jim McGuinness came in when I was 24 or 25.
“I turned 30 recently and I’m still in good shape physical-wise but he’s talking about a four or five-year plan and you’d really want to be under him for that.
“But listen, I’m just glad to be there for this year. We’ll take it a year at a time and see where it goes.”
He knows it could be a lot worse — this might have never happened. The Ulster final win over Derry, that booming winning point against Kildare. But he wants more. It’s why he admits he’s training every day.
“Any GAA player that’s going to compete at the top level has to do that. Tuesday, Thursday and the weekend isn’t going to be enough. Every last man in that squad is doing something Monday and Wednesday as well, whether it’s out kicking or doing early morning weights sessions. That’s the way the game has gone. If you don’t do that you’ll be found out in those big games.”
He and Donegal were found out before. They won’t be discovered too easily tomorrow, that’s for sure.
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