'We let ourselves down a little' Cavan hero on opportunities missed with Kerry

Irish Daily Mirror

3 hours ago

With the week that's in it, it was apt that the RTE series, Hell For Leather - The Story of Gaelic Football, landed on the 1947 All-Ireland final last Monday night.
It recalled how the novel idea of staging the GAA's showpiece event in New York, to mark the centenary of the worst year of the great famine, came from the Clare county convention. The motion was resisted by the GAA's top brass before it came to Congress but Clare delegate Canon Michael Hamilton spoke passionately.
'They'll never see their homeland again,' he said of the Irish that had been scattered to America, 'and are you going to deny them this bit of Ireland?'
The motion passed. Kerry and Cavan qualified for the final at the Polo Grounds some months later, with Cavan scoring their greatest victory in the most unique All-Ireland final of all.
'Cavan glorious and happy in victory,' surmised Micheál O'Hehir on the highlights reel as the players celebrated. 'The greatest chapter in Irish sporting history came to an end.'
The links to 1947 have invariably endured in Cavan teams since. Current full-back Killian Brady is the grand-nephew of Phil 'The Gunner' Brady, who played at midfield in 1947, for example.
Cormac O'Reilly's grand-uncle was John Wilson, wing-back 78 years ago and a long-time Fianna Fáil TD who would serve as Tánaiste. O'Reilly's father, Damien, has no direct familial links, but was a key player for Cavan when they played Kerry in two landmark fixtures in 1997, 50 years on from their last Championship victory over them.
The first was an All-Ireland semi-final, Cavan's first in 28 years having ended their famine in Ulster, and a game that still rankles all these years on. Cavan competed well for the most part and Fintan Cahill's first half goal gave them impetus. However, Maurice Fitzgerald's brilliance proved too much as Kerry finished strongly to win by seven points.
But O'Reilly views it as an opportunity missed. Ulster teams had done well in Croke Park since 1991. Kerry hadn't won an All-Ireland in 11 years and had been well beaten by Mayo the year before.
'I just feel that we let ourselves down a little,' says O'Reilly. 'It was much different in Ulster because in '95 we had been in the Ulster final and in '96 we'd been in the Ulster semi-final and all the lads would say, because I retired shortly after that and Stephen King did as well, but we nearly knew we'd win Ulster in '97.
'We were that confident of winning it that we all stayed on and I don't think we just had that same belief when we got to Croke Park and as well as that, to be fair, when you're not there year in, year out it's different. It's difficult. We probably should have won the All-Ireland that year because I believed we were as good as the other teams. We were as good as Mayo as well that got to the final and I believe we were as good as Kerry.'
Long before that All-Ireland semi-final, the counties had been slated to play their opening round League game against each other, in October 1997, in New York to mark the 50th anniversary of the Polo Grounds final. Martin McHugh had already stepped down as Cavan manager and selectors Michael Reilly and Donal Donoghue took charge of the side for a game attended by some 10,000 at Denning Stadium on Randall's Island.
Fitzgerald had been imperious once again in Kerry's All-Ireland final win over Mayo three weeks earlier, and his levels hadn't dropped as he spearheaded another victory. O'Reilly has fond memories of 'an amazing trip', with several of the 1947 team on board, including Wilson, his wife's uncle, but he wished they could have given the sizeable Cavan diaspora in New York something more.
'Like, we got two chances at Kerry within a few months of each other and both times we weren't successful so that's what I look back on - the disappointment, and I think that's where sometimes teams let themselves down. There's that extra bit of belief because I know you hear all the quotes of 15 versus 15 and so on and so forth, but I think if you have a little bit more belief…
'I'd love if we had to win in New York just for the Cavan people out there. I wish we had but we didn't.'
The links with those games 28 years ago to 1947 were obvious. And as much as we might like to romanticise, it would be stretching it to draw parallels with this afternoon's preliminary quarter-final in Killarney between two sides who come into the fixture on the back of heavy defeats, despite the lineage that is there.
'I don't think it'll come into conversation at all now, no,' says O'Reilly.
He is frustrated by the current team's inconsistency throughout the League and Championship, but their performance in beating Mayo recently offers hope.
'Cavan were very, very good and then you come out again and then you put in a good 20 minutes against Donegal at Breffni Park. We were against a strong breeze and we're within two points of Donegal coming up to half-time and then we conceded a goal and then the second half was a disaster and then very poor again last week so it's very difficult to know what to expect.'
And Cormac, who's having his best year yet with the county, wouldn't be giving him the inside track either.
'He tells you absolutely zero about Cavan or what's going on or who would be playing. You'd read more in the paper than he'd actually tell you about what's happening in camp but after a match I would have a chat with him.
'We're up against it obviously but I suppose there's absolutely no pressure on Cavan. There is a bit of pressure on Kerry now after being beaten by Meath.
'They're in Killarney, they should beat us - but you never know.'