By Niall Gartland

CAVAN ladies are riding the crest of a wave and their captain Shauna Lynch was thrilled to accept the trophy on behalf of the team after dispensing with Down in Sunday’s Ulster Intermediate final.

The Breffni side ran riot on a scoreline of 6-10 to 1-8 en route to claim their second piece of silverware already this season, having already won the Division Three title.

Lynch has played for more than a decade at senior level for Cavan, but had nothing substantive to show for her efforts, so it’s been an amazing season already and there could be more to come with the All-Ireland Intermediate Championship just around the corner.

“This is my 11th year, I came in after we won the All-Ireland in 2013, I was a minor at that point.

“My age group was used to winning, but it didn’t really happen for us at senior level, I used to laugh about our woes with Aisling Sheridan, that we hadn’t won anything since, so between winning the league and Ulster titles, this year has been class.”

Cavan dropped down – temporarily as it turned out – to Division Three this year and Lynch says it’s did them no harm whatsoever. They backed up their league title with provincial success and the future looks very bright indeed with so many talented younger players coming through the ranks.

“We were competing at senior level for so many years and fighting relegation battle after relegation battle.

“Some people said we needed to go down a grade or two, I never really agreed with that, but I think going down meant we were able to work our way up again. It’s helped massively and with the quality of players coming through, we’re building a team that’s hopefully going to go from strength-to-strength.”

There’s an abiding sense of positivity enveloping the Cavan ladies at present and that was reflected by the support they were shown on Sunday in Omagh.

“That’s one thing I commented on after the match. The men were playing Mayo in Castlebar that day as well, so considering that, I think we had a fantastic support behind us as well. The people of Cavan can see that we’re doing well and want to be there to support us.

“I think from the start of the year you could see that training was really good, really tough but worthwhile. The quality of players was there as well, so I think from the outset we could see that something good could come out of this year.

“There was a lot of positivity and I think that’s coming to fruition now,” she added.