Maurice Brosnan: The Cavan hurlers are still fighting
Cavan hurling feature Maurice Brosnan 060224
When it comes to the most important game across the weekend's Allianz League hurling, you could make a case for Clare v Cork or Kilkenny v Wexford. Maybe even Tipperary v Dublin at a push.
What about when it comes to the most important game for the future of the sport?
Ten months ago, Cavan secured promotion to Division 3A and went on to miss out on a Lory Meagher final by the slimmest of margins. Two months ago, their future in the league was in jeopardy.
They would have been impacted by the proposal from the GAA’s Central Competitions Controls Committee (CCCC) that any county with fewer than five adult hurling teams should be excluded from the league and consigned to the fifth-tier championship only from 2025 onwards.
On Saturday, they travelled to Markievicz Park to take on Sligo in front of 118 spectators. A grand total of 65 tickets were sold. The rest was made up of player passes, officials, U16s and the like.
In the press box, three or four devoted local journalists and a referee's advisor sat and watched a rousing Cavan comeback fall just short as Sligo ran out four-point winners.
Cavan fell into a hole and trailed by 15 at the interval. The gap was seven when wing-forward Thomas Leonard was sent off late in the second half. A frantic finish saw them pepper the square but just lose out, 4-19 to 3-18. They dreamed. They were buried. They dreamed some more. The story of their lives.
“If you look at where we are at now, we’ve four clubs up and running on the back of what the county side are doing,” Cavan manager Ollie Bellew explained post-match. His childhood heroes were the great Antrim team of old. That lit the fuse. Now it is about passing on the torch.
“To think you’d be devastated at coming here and running Sligo close but not getting a result, years ago you’d be delighted with that. Cavan has real ambitions for hurling and it is going in the right direction. I hope they’ll all be out in force in Kingspan Breffni to support next weekend.”
The fervent backlash soon saw that proposal ditched before it even made it to the voting stage. Vast swathes of the fraternity discovered just how dire hurling’s health was in the majority of the county but none of this is new. That was one round in an enduring bout. We’ve gone around in circles on the same path for decades.
Platitudes and plámás. Sweeping statements about promotion and investment. Periodic lip service for the lower tiers. Then back to exhaling the sacred game. The same way since the start.
In 1887, six teams competed from six different counties in the hurling championship. In 1888 it was nine. That cohort has accounted for 130 of the 136 All-Ireland titles. For over a century, the growth outside of the traditional strongholds has been minimal. It has been and remains a minority sport across the nation. Why has this been tolerated for so long?
Cavan have collapsed before. They went six years without an intercounty side after successive hammerings in the 2011 league. The 2021 Lory Meagher final was their first outing in Croke Park for over 100 years.
They have a flagship team now. The significance of that cannot be understated, as captain Canice Maher explained outside the dressing afterwards. It is why they battled back.
“Just talking to the lads, we’re seriously disappointed. But we were 12, 13 down at half-time and could’ve thrown in the towel. It shows the bit of heart in the group and what we are fighting for.”
Maher is known in the sport. At the top end of the sport. He captained his native Kilkenny in the 2009 All-Ireland minor final defeat against Galway. He togged out in the Walsh Cup before moving to Dublin and he hurled there for a spell under Ger Cunningham. Then he married a Bailieborough woman and joined East Cavan Gaels.
“I’m a primary school teacher at St Killian’s national school in Mullagh. Even I’d notice going in Monday morning, kids know the result. They’re not here today but it is gradual. Keith (Green) here with us runs an initiative for home games in Breffni to get kids in and on the field at half-time. Without games that obviously can’t happen.”
And yet they readily acknowledge that in itself won’t be enough to generate change. What needs to happen next isn’t about finger-pointing or laying the blame at anyone’s door. Almost everyone is culpable for the current state of affairs. GAA people in certain counties have neglected one code. The association hasn’t demonstrated the appetite to challenge that. Hurling heartlands haven’t sufficiently supported the cause.
The core problem with that proposal was that it felt like an attack on the devoted diehards endeavouring to keep the blaze alight. Too often that camp feels under attack by someone somewhere. Otherwise, they are ignored. A National Hurling Action Plan Workgroup met for the first time last December but there is no Cavan representative on it. They should be incorporated. Cultivated.
For example, the Central Fixtures Analysis Committee included in their latest annual report a proposal for a cross-county club hurling championship for counties with 10 teams or fewer in the northern half of the country. Maher can see the merit in that. He just wants a few tweaks. Mould it to suit the ambitions and values of the counties involved.
“We play in the South Ulster league now and it’s a good set-up. The Cú Chulainn League has been excellent. You get high-quality games there.
“The thing for me, the Cavan Championship is what we all aim to win. Is it as special if it is a Cavan-Monaghan-whoever championship? The Cavan medal matters to us. It drives us on. I think there is scope for a league basis to play different teams and increase exposure even more.
"No more than today, when was the last time Cavan played Sligo? That’s why it would be a shame if we weren’t here. We wouldn’t get that playing the same five teams in the Lory Meagher.”
This cannot be forgotten. For the five counties under threat, the point was repeatedly made that their intercounty team is the best form of promotion possible. That is not their sole purpose. It can be a byproduct sure, but history shows it can’t solely be the game-changer.
And it shouldn’t have to be. These GAA members want to play the game they love at the highest level possible. That is worth fighting for.
In order to become a truly national game, hurling needs Cavan. Right now, Cavan needs hurling too. Collectively that recent outrage can’t afford to become futile. The problem has been generational. So is the solution. We saw that on Saturday.
An hour before throw-in the main stand was empty. As patrons trickled in, a father and son began to puck meticulously to each other in the aisle. At half-time, they headed for the pitch and passed over and back, as adept with left as right. Repetition and exposure will lead to mastery.
“We had to get something out of this two-and-a-half-hour trip,” said Willie Gaughan as he hopped back over the wire with a smile, their prospects particularly bleak at that juncture.
Gaughan is the founder and chairman East Cavan Gaels. After the final whistle, nine clubmen pose for a photo with his son, Jayden and his U15 team-mate, Shane. Those two boys stayed pucking on the field as everyone else faded away and attention turned elsewhere. Eventually, Gaughan has to intervene and make a start on their return trip.
“We spend our time developing our game locally and no one sees that,” he said before departing. “The only time a light gets shown on that is when they make an intercounty squad. We had nine altogether today. We had none five years ago.
"Then it became three. We’ve developed lads. Jack Barry, Rory Farrell. James Tully who is 18 coming into the senior squad to make his debut. We worked with them since they were children. Working towards today.
“And our young fellas here love them. They want to be them.”
Here exists a burning desire. Time for us all to fan the flames.
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