By Niall Gartland

CAVAN camogs are set to feature in their first competitive game in nearly two whole years in Sunday’s Ulster Intermediate Championship final against Tyrone.

Managing the team is Philip ‘Gunner’ Brady who is back for a second stint in charge, and he’s naturally delighted that they’re back flying the flag for Cavan camogie at senior intercounty level – indeed, he says that they never should have drifted away in the first place.

He discovered that there was a desire among former players to return to the fold, and that alligned with a talented U-23 team means that they should be able to give a strong account of themselves not only on Sunday, but in the upcoming All-Ireland Premier Junior series.

Taking up the story, he explained: “. I was involved in 2022 and 2023, when we won a National League. In 2024, they struggled to get players to commit, and last year they didn’t field a team at all. They felt the commitment just wasn’t there. At the start of last year, management had a couple of training sessions, but then it stopped.

This year started off in a similar way. They put out a senior team and got quite a few players back – maybe 12 or 14. They asked me if I’d be interested in managing them. I don’t know if they approached others as well, but while I had some questions about it , I never actually committed to taking the team.

“About a month or six weeks ago, a few of the girls came to me and asked if there was going to be a county team, would I consider getting involved if the county board supported it. I reached out myself, put feelers out to some of the older players, and I knew there was an U-23 squad there as well. I wanted to see what was available, and they really bought into it, which I was delighted with. We then brought a good number of the U-23s into the setup as well.”

Beyond the U23 set-up are strong minor and U-16 teams as well. Just the other week, the minors landed All-Ireland honours at ‘C’ level, while their U-16 counterparts lost out last weekend in a provincial level at the same level against Tyrone.

“There’s an underage structure coming through now. Over the last two or three years, we’ve had strong minor teams and good U-16 sides, but then all of a sudden there was nothing to feed into at senior level. At least now there’s an U-23 team in place.

“We got together, looked at it, and realised we had enough players for a panel without any problem. With the county board’s support, we applied to Croke Park to see if we could get into the Premier Junior competition, so we’ve that to look forward to as well.

“We’ve a nice blend and we’re looking forward to it – we’ll find out soon enough whether we’ll be able to compete with the likes of Tyrone this Sunday, alongside Armagh or Kildare in the All-Ireland. They’ve all been operating at a very high level so we’ll see how it goes.”