By Shaun Casey

WHEN the Cavan minors assembled at the beginning of the 2011 season, they were chasing a first Ulster title at that level since 1974. In fact, at all age grades, the Breffni County had only captured four Ulster titles in the intervening 37-year period.

One of those had arrived just three months earlier with the U21s.

Cavan hadn’t even reached a provincial final at minor level since 1988, but a determined group of players, led by Dermot McCabe, set their sights on changing that record.

Having watched the U21s defeat Tyrone to carry home the Ulster crown earlier in the year, there was a swell of optimism inside the county.

“I think we did win a competition around U16 level, not that it was a big thing, but it maybe gave us a bit of confidence going into our minor year,” recalled Joe Dillon, full forward on that team, 15 years on.

“We definitely wouldn’t have been looking at winning an Ulster. Obviously, you want to win but it was about getting out and trying to perform as best you can.

“The U21s had won their Ulster final in April so that was a big thing in Cavan at the time. There wasn’t success at underage for a while so that win probably gave us another spark of motivation and confidence to try and emulate that.”

He continued: “I was at all those U21 games and watching the boys and how they went about their business, they were just leading by example. Then in the Ulster Championship, we were playing a lot of those games before senior games and there was a great atmosphere.

“You wanted to be a part of that, and you wanted to do well and be successful. I remember for the U21 All-Ireland semi-final, Cavan played Wexford in Parnell Park, and it was a packed house so it gave you a good feeling, and you wanted to do everything you could to win.”

The influence of manager Dermot McCabe, Cavan’s most recent All-Star winner at the time having picked up the individual award in 1997, was huge inside the four walls of the Cavan changing room.

McCabe, who has just finished his first season in charge of the Cavan seniors, had led the men in blue to an Ulster Senior Championship title in 1997 as a player, their first in over three decades, so ending a long drought was nothing new to the Gowna clubman.

“Dermot had won an Ulster with Cavan in 1997 and was an All-Star player, so we all looked up to him. He had the respect of the room straight away,” Dillon said of McCabe’s presence.

“Whatever he said, we were going to do, especially as a young lad, that’s just the way that it was. He had a good backroom team as well. PJ Lee was a running and athletics coach, and he was putting us through our paces at the time.

“Gary Donohoue was a selector and a very good football man. We’d Seamus McCabe as well, Dermot’s brother, and I hope I’m not leaving anybody out! It was a very good management team, and we had great respect for Dermot and the lads that were coaching us.”

Victories over Antrim and reigning champions Tyrone qualified Cavan for a first Ulster Minor decider since 1988, a curtain raiser at St Tiernach’s Park to the senior showpiece between Derry and Donegal.

That same day, Jim McGuinness guided Donegal to their first Ulster crown since 1992, but before the Tir Chonaill contingent burst into a euphoric state, it was all about the blue wave at Clones.

Armagh, who had won the All-Ireland Minor just two years previous and had future Sam Maguire winners Paddy Burns, Ciaron O’Hanlon and Ethan Rafferty in their ranks, stood between Cavan and a trophy that had eluded the county since 1974.

“I was very nervous for that final. That Armagh team we played were a strong outfit, and they were probably slight favourites and they were big men at the time.”

Cavan flew out of the traps with the first five scores of the game, with Dillon getting his name on the scoresheet early on, but they failed to raise another flag for the rest of the half and trailed 1-6 to 0-5 at the break.

Michael Argue ended Cavan’s 32-minute dry spell at the start of the second period and they never looked back, holding Armagh scoreless after the turnaround to win 0-12 to 1-6 and finally get their hands on the Tom Markham Cup.

“That’s minor football in a nutshell,” the Kingscourt Stars attacker laughed. “I remember the final whistle going, I actually got taken off ten minutes towards the end and there were great celebrations after.

“I remember seeing my family, my mother and father and the two sisters as well. We were in the old dressing rooms in the top corner of Clones and we’d good craic, throwing water and Lucozade on top of each other.

“With games like that when you’re a young fella and with so much at stake, when you’re in the dressing room with your teammates after, you think you’re the best in the world. I do remember we got a couple of nights out in Cavan off it as well.

“I think the All-Ireland quarter-finals were two weeks later so we got one or two nights out. We went back to Conor Moynagh’s house, and his brother was cooking us all a big fry up. Moments like that are what you remember.”

Galway ended their All-Ireland charge at the quarter-final stage, edging out a 1-9 to 0-9 victory, but that certainly wasn’t the end of that team. Their journey was only about to begin. They had plenty more successful days in the years to come.

Dillon, along with a crowd of his teammates, helped Cavan achieved an unprecedented run of four Ulster U21 Championship titles across 2011-2014. A feat that had only been achieved once before, by Tyrone in the early noughties.

A number of them also made up the spine of the Cavan senior team over the past decade, with the county getting their hands on the Anglo Celt Cup for the first time in 23 years in 2020.

“You had Killian (Clarke), Dara McVeety, Padraig (Faulkner) my own clubman, Gerry Smith, ‘the Holla’ (Ciarán Brady), Moynagh and I’m probably missing a few there as well,” Dillon added.

“Those boys have been the backbone of the Cavan team. They had great careers and it’s a tough business. It took until 2020 to win an Ulster senior after all that hard work that had been done at underage level.

“Like everything else, it takes a lot of dedication and serious commitment, life commitment really but that’s it, those lads committed at senior level, and they knew what they were getting into and they loved doing it.

“Success doesn’t happen every year and we were probably lucky with the minors and the U21s – going into senior level is a totally different ball game.”