McGeeney keeps Breffni Park waiting

Closure.

One of those horrible Americanisms we have subconsciously imported from Hollywood, but it was hard to think of a better word after Seanie Johnston made his long-awaited debut for Kildare at his old hunting ground in Breffni Park yesterday.

Over seven months and a lifetime of debate and acrimony had passed since he first applied to Croke Park for an inter-county transfer and he was made wait another 62 minutes here before Kieran McGeeney summoned him into the fray.

There were cheers and there were jeers — though far more of the former, it must be said — when he removed his black tracksuit and strode onto the pitch resplendent in white and took up his position in front of the Cavan goal.

For seven minutes he ran about hither and tither like an unbroken and eager colt. Home supporters sounded their approval wildly every time the ball entered his airspace and left without his imprint, momentarily heedless of the fact that their team trailed by 14 points.

Finally, he got his mitts on the ball, firing off a shot before shipping a late and robust challenge from Niall McDermott, which earned a free that he duly sent over the bar from a difficult angle. Unbelievably, the world didn’t stop turning.

So, time for us all to move on?

“That’s not really up to me,” said McGeeney. “I would like to have put it to bed four or five months ago but he was playing well this week in training. He deserved his chance so he got it.”

McGeeney’s annoyance with the long-protracted affair was obvious. His smile was a wry one and his stance combative when one journalist put it to him that some Cavan fans thought it unnecessary to introduce Johnston with the game won.

The former Armagh captain also took issue with the assertion that there had been a large number of dissenting voices when No 21 ran on and brushed off the hostility towards his new panellist from the terraces by likening the atmosphere to any other he had known.

It was anything but. Whatever one’s views on Johnston’s transfer, it was unedifying to hear an amateur player being booed by a portion of a crowd. By his own. The 10 minutes that followed his arrival descended into bad pantomime.

“That was probably always going to happen,” said Cavan manager Terry Hyland. “It has been a circus and it has been crazy stuff all week. Even in Cavan, there were cameras running here and there.

“Good luck to Seanie. He’s a good footballer but he’s not an All Star and good luck to Kildare. They have a team that’s progressing but they haven’t won any All-Irelands yet.”

Maybe not, but they began the process of atoning for that shock Leinster semi-final loss to Meath with some ease yesterday, even if the Cavan challenge was well below what even those of us with the most modest of expectations had anticipated.

McGeeney said: “Fellas had a point to prove but I don’t think they proved anything yet and I am sure they will be reminded of that [in the papers].

“Everyone says we have yet to beat any of the top four teams but if we did we would be All-Ireland champions.

“They are the top four for a reason and we are trying to break into it... At the end of the day, the people who are doing the talking will have the last laugh and we have to win something to stop them doing that.”