Cuchulainn’s generation game

By Michael McMullan

HISTORY doesn’t kick the ball over the bar but it helps generate an image of what can be achieved as Cuchulainn’s prepare for this weekend’s Ulster Intermediate final against Glenullin.

For 22-year-old captain Philip Smyth, he doesn’t need to look very far to find a line of symmetry between the current team and men of ’05, the last group to bring home the bacon in Cavan.

His midfield partner Adrian Taite was a teenage corner-back 20 years ago when the club, hugging the Meath border, just over the Barora River, danced the victory jig.

It was Taite’s goal that broke Drumalee in a low-scoring arm wrestle. Fast-forward to now, together, Taite and Smyth decommissioned a Clonoe midfield that was the heartbeat of 20 successive wins in league and championship. Until Cuchulainn’s pressed the stop button on the Tyrone champions’ remarkable season.

It was Taite’s flying punch that broke the ball on the way to Niall Carolan making their killer second goal for Evan Doughty. Taite, after a Carolan pass, stepped around goalkeeper Mickey O’Neill to bag the first goal. Composure at its best.

There are more links to ’05. Centre back Terry Farrelly is now chairman and his son Turlough plays at wing forward. Current manager Niall Lynch and selector Seamus Clarke played 20 years ago.

Fergus Reilly is now the treasurer, Pat Murtagh the juvenile chairman and Paul Taite the vice-chairman.

“We have seen a lot of that team over the last few weeks in terms of the celebrations after the win in Cavan,” Smyth said.

“There’s actually a lot of ties. I was chatting to Adam O’Reilly after the Ulster semi and he was making sure that everyone knew that this team was better than the 2005 team. There’s definitely some sort of drive coming from it.”

The current crop are making their own piece of history but haven’t forgot the men who ploughed the furrows before them.

The club’s social media channels lit up last week with emotion jangling video montage of county final day. Watching it, if you have ever been part of a team, you get proper goosebumps.

It’s all in there. The homecoming and speeches from the back of a lorry. The players welcomed, one by one, with a cheer dwarfing their name emitting from the speakers. “Pride” was chairman Farrelly’s word of choice in his address.

Perhaps the most emotional scene is the team parading down the street, led by a piper and flanked by the 2005 team, carrying flamed torches that lit up the autumn sky. It was magical. Inspiring almost.

“It was a nice touch and a nice link between the two teams,” Smyth said of a night that made forever memories. “It was brilliant, the town after the final was unbelievable.”

Speaking before their Ulster campaign, Smyth referenced how close they’d been without actually winning the Cavan title in previous years. The 2025 vibe was an echo of the now or never variety.

Coming from six points down in the group stages against relegation-threatened Drumgoon to dig out a 1-17 to 1-15 victory was an important moment. Not major but enough to be noticed. It was the type of speed bump that threw previous seasons off course. Not this time.

With 10 different scorers, they accounted for Butlersbridge in the final and it was celebration time. Wins over Irvinestown and Clonoe have propelled them to Sunday’s Clones date with Glenullin.

Smyth always believed they’d get across that finish line but wanted it to be sooner rather than later. From being on the wrong side of results, winning is now a habit.

“I’ve credited management before,” Smyth said of what tipped the scales this season. There was also more maturity that comes from losing and learning.

“Niall Lynch, Ronan Flanagan, Seamus Clarke have us well drilled, Martin Reilly as well.

“We’ve just gone out to perform and do a job every game, that’s how we’ve done it.

“We never felt, going into a game, that this could be another game that we would lose narrowly.

“It was always a case of, if we perform, we can win this game. So that was probably the difference.”

There was also a belief in the quality within the dressing room. Smyth’s minor year got to a Division One semi-final.

They lost two u-20 finals to a Southern Gaels team that fed into two Gowna senior winning teams

“We would have been playing against them and would have seen ourselves as being fit to put it up to them,” he added.

“I counted on a team photo; there was something like 24 of the 36 we had togged out for the county final that I had played u-20 football with.”

This year’s foundation was blending in with the others on the panel, the older and younger, and kicking on.

“There was no fear that we were going to keep coming up short,” Smyth added.

“We would have thought we were going to win the Intermediate Championship, but it was just a case of hopefully doing it sooner rather than later. You don’t want to spend your entire career waiting on it.”

Cuchulainn’s are now bidding to follow Ballinagh’s class of 2007, the only Cavan club to have took home the Patrick McCully Cup.

Drumgoon lost a final in 2002, off the back of winning the first ever All-Ireland Junior Championship. Mullahoran lost the 2018 final after having handed Cuchculainn’s a lesson in the Cavan final.

More recently, Ballyhaise – after beating Glenullin – and Arva have lost the last two finals. Smyth doesn’t give the fact they were another Cavan team in a final much thought.

The main focus is on two simple things – winning and knowing what their opponents will bring after their extra-time win over Carrickmacross.

“They did very well to pull it back and they have a lot of experience in this competition,” he said, “We’ll definitely be treating them with full respect.”

There is a big hour ahead on Sunday, but if Cuchuliann’s deliver, they write themselves into club folklore. The torches will be out. History doesn’t win games but it plants a seed.