The Life of Reilly: Cavan legend reflects on his time in the Breffni blue

AMID the pandemonium of last year’s unexpected Ulster Championship triumph, particularly contemplative Cavan fans will have spared a thought for those who had – seemingly through nothing more than a twist of fate – missed out on picking up a coveted provincial medal.

Cian Mackey, one of the most talented Cavan players of his generation, decided to hang up the boots in January 2020, while stalwarts Dara McVeety and Conor Moynagh also missed out as they decided to go travelling.

The unfortunate ones? Perhaps – or perhaps Dara and Conor are having a whale of a time, and Cian seemed pleased as punch for his ex-colleagues in the aftermath of their victory over Donegal.

But the perception remains that luck wasn’t on their side, and the same applies to someone like Jim Reilly, who’s widely regarded as Cavan’s pre-eminent player of the ‘80s.

He actually lined out in county colours for 17 years, between 1976 and 1993, so it’d be easy for him to feel like he missed the boat, but it’s fair to say it’s a consolation when you have won eight Senior Championship medals.

Reilly lives in Carlow these days, but his heart is very much in Kingscourt and Cavan, where he made his name as a swashbuckling wing-back who represented Ulster in the Railway Cup throughout the ‘80s and Ireland’s International Rules team in 1987.

In terms of where it all started, Reilly was part of an emerging group of Kingscourt players who won a number of titles at underage level. He also won Corn na nÓg and Rannafast titles with St Pat’s, Cavan, but lost a MacRory Cup final after a replay to St Pat’s, Maghera.

He was brought into the Cavan minor team, but he recalls they were destroyed by a Paul Donnelly-inspired Tyrone in the Ulster Minor Championship final in 1976.

“A chap called Paul Donnelly put three in the net in the first half. I was playing left half-back that day and he was playing full-forward and at half time I was moved back to mark this guy, but the damage was done. He’d the ball in the net three times at that stage, sure the thing was gone from us at half time.

“I remember he broke his leg in the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork and I never really heard of him afterwards.

“He’s from Augher and I’m friendly with Eugene McKenna so I asked Eugene about it one day. He said he came back and played club football but never really broke into the Tyrone senior squad. I suppose a broken leg was a bigger deal in those days.”

He’d caught the eye of Cavan senior manager Fr Benny Maguire and was parachuted into the set-up days before their Ulster Championship final replay against Derry. He didn’t get any game-time but it was the beginning of a long career for the senior team.

“Derry won the replay, it was the time of Anthony McGurk, Tom McGuinness, Gerry McElhinney and players like that. Cavan had a good team too, but things had undoubtedly slipped a bit.

“We won the title in 1969 and it was another 28 years before we won another. It’s hard to put your finger on, we were well able to compete at club level in Ulster. A lot of lads had to leave for work which didn’t help matters.”

Kingscourt didn’t have the same issues with employment, however, as there were a few major firms located in the area. In 1980, he captained the side to their first Cavan Senior Championship title in 59 years, and it didn’t end there as they won a further seven titles before the side broke up in 1993.

“We won the u-21 title in 1979, and an Intermediate title in 1976, so when we won the Senior Championship in 1980 it was a mixture of those two teams.

“I was only a young lad but someone in their wisdom decided to make me captain. It was great and I suppose it paved the way for where Kingscourt are now. They’re one of the top teams in Cavan.

“We were beaten then in the 1985 final and after that we won three in-a-row. We were lucky. Kingscourt had a right bit of employment in the ‘80s so a lot of those u-21 players were able to stay around.

“I was living in Dublin at the time, working in a bank, and I ended up moving to Monaghan, then Dundalk and then down to Carlow. I was always travelling to training and matches and it did take its toll eventually.”

Reilly was an ever-present on the Railway Cup panel in that era, and even captained the team for a spell under Brian McEniff. He also has great memories of training under Down legend Sean O’Neill in the early days of his career.

<“I’ve three Railway Cup medals where I actually played, and two as a sub but I don’t really count them.

“I was a sub when Sean O’Neill was over the team – the half-back line was Kevin McCabe, Nudie Hughes, Paddy Moriarty, not bad, eh?

“I remember a journalist from the Irish News – he used to ring me when I was living in Monaghan for an article and I’d always try to facilitate the northern papers, as I knew from talking to lads on the Railway Cup panels that players were under a lot of pressure at the time because of the Troubles.

“Anyway, that same journalist got talking to Sean O’Neill and said it was a nightmare getting a quote from him – Sean would say ‘is this on the record, is this off the record?’ I think it was the solicitor in him.

“A group of us used to go up to Omagh for 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning to train. Ulster took it far more seriously than the other provinces. That was a time when the counties weren’t doing much, so the Railway Cup was sort of the highlight.

“Sean O’Neill left no stone unturned. You’d go up there and spend the whole day training in Omagh. You’d then go back to the hotel and go through the opposition. Sean’s attention to detail was unbelievable.”

Reilly also paid tribute to Brian McEniff – a man associated with the Railway Cup perhaps more than any other, having led Ulster to 12 titles between 1983 and 2007.

“Brian was very good. He picked me on every team and made me captain in 1989. He’d great knowledge of Ulster GAA and Ulster players.

“I couldn’t say a bad word about him. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of every player. He knew everything about you.

“He’d always say, ‘I know what you have in you, just go out and express yourself’. I’d say a lot of players aren’t allowed to do that any more. You’re in a system, if the pass isn’t on, you turn and go back or go laterally. You can go anywhere but just don’t kick it.

“There’s so much effort put into strength and conditioning, it’s become a cottage industry, but I just don’t think it’s as good as when I played. You fought your own battle, whereas now I think you don’t have to be that good sometimes.”

The Breffni county reached the Ulster final in 1983, where they played Donegal. It was a close contest, but Cavan lost out by 1-14 to 1-11. Reilly says he was insulated from the hype as he lived in Dublin. The downside was the amount of travelling involved.

“We were young and thought maybe this will happen every year but it just didn’t work out like that. It was a close match. Donegal just got more possession at midfield in the last 15 minutes. Derek McDonnell was our full-forward and he was on fire but we just couldn’t get the ball into him.

“I was lucky living in Dublin at the time. The hype before the game didn’t affect me really. That was good but the problem was I had to go to Cavan on Tuesday and Thursday night, and then had a game on Sunday, so I was on the road all the time.

“Then when Cavan were knocked out, I was on the road to Kingscourt instead. There were a lot of students down there and I was the only one with a car, so I was always picking up lads in Dublin to go to training.

“Let me tell you, I didn’t make any money from it, but you get a gra for the GAA. It’s like a drug. It gets into your system and I still get a great buzz from it even if I don’t think it’s as good of a spectacle any more.

“I was a bit anonymous around Dublin. There was a bit of banter and slagging at work but you could hide in Dublin, nobody would know what you were up too. I even played a bit of soccer around Dublin with the bank – I could play on the Saturday and I never told the county board.”

The rest of the decade was fairly poor for Cavan, and Reilly says the knockout system didn’t help as it didn’t give teams a chance to develop.

“There were no second chances in those days, no chance to build or look at lads again. You went straight back to the club, and if the club got knocked out, you had no football until the National league would start in October. You could have a whole summer doing nothing.

“The effort was always there, but there was a big burst on for the first round, and if you lost that – bye bye.

“Lads could go to America, they could go anywhere, and then you had to regroup for the National League in October.

“I remember being knocked out of the Ulster Championship by Antrim in the early ‘80s. That was the lowest point – no disrespect intended to Antrim, they were the better team on the day, but for Cavan to be beaten by Antrim in Breffni Park, well I was lucky to be living in Dublin.”

A few years ago, Reilly was named in the half-back line on the ‘Team of the ’80s’ when the GAA took the novel step of naming a specially-chosen team deemed to be the best 15 footballers from the 1980s who did not win All-Ireland medals.

He actually played midfield for his club, but he was known nationally for his performances as wing half-back for Cavan. He recalls taking on board a few words of advice from another Down legend, Colm McAlarney.

“Wing-back was my favourite position at county level and I played in midfield for Kingscourt. I was blessed with a good engine, but I loved playing midfield for the club.

“I played a bit of midfield for Cavan as well with Stephen King in 1987. He was a fantastic fielder of the ball. I’m not sure how well he’d do today as players are so mobile, but if you kicked it out in his direction he’d win the ball. He had a tremendous spring.

“I remember Colm McAlarney telling me a few tricks. We’d a coaching session in Kingscourt one Saturday morning, and he said two things – don’t solo the ball when you get it, hop it way out in front of you and run onto the ball. He had long strides and he’d be gone maybe seven yards with the one bounce before he’d even need to solo it.

“The second thing he taught me was to ride the tackle. If you see a lad coming to get you, ride the tackle at speed, get off the ground and keep on going. You’ll be three feet further on at that stage, and it saved me loads of times. Simple little things but very effective.”

Reilly, who rates Jack McCaffrey as the best half-back of this present generation, says that his speed got him out of trouble on innumerable occasions, and that’s one of the reasons why he was able to play consistently for Cavan and Kingscourt for almost two decades.

“I was lucky, I had the usual twinges with the hamstring, and a bit of a problem near the end with my Achilles’ tendon, but I never had any major injuries.

“People sometimes note that and I put it down to having a bit of speed. Eugene McKenna used to say ‘you’re never injured’ and I’d joke ‘I’d be gone before the tackle comes’. I was quick and that did help. Even at club level, you ‘d know lads were coming to bust the county man, and that bit of speed helped me several times.”

He also represented Ireland in the 1987 International Rules series. The series took place at home, so no big shin-dig in Australia, and he actually found it a bit boring (for the record, Australia won the series 2-1).

>“I would’ve played the previous one only Kingscourt were in the Ulster Club final. Kevin Heffernan was over them and they went to Australia, but I had to pull out of that squad because Kingscourt were playing.

“It gave me a taste of the professional lifestyle. We played down in Limerick and you were in a hotel on the quays for the whole week. We were training and eating big meals and it was hard to kill the time.

“It was still great to meet out players from across Ireland. I went on a couple of All-Star trips and met great lads through that as well. I roomed with Brian McGilligan and Tony Scullion on an All-Star trip, they’re two of the best lads you’d meet. I played with all those Tyrone lads at various times as well, John Lynch, Plunkett Donaghy, Ciaran McGarvey, Aidan Skelton, Noel McGinn, Damian O’Hagan. I’m still very friendly with Eugene to this day.”

In terms of the greatest player he’s encountered, however, he has to give the nod to former Down playmaker Greg Blaney.

“Greg was brilliant at winning the dirty ball. He could pick a pass, he could score. I played with him for Ulster and Ireland, time-and-time again he’d come out with the ball when you didn’t think there was a hope in hell of him getting it. He was always in good shape and I never saw him have a bad game.”

While Kingscourt won eight Senior Championship titles during his career, they never got over the line in Ulster – even though they came damn close.

In 1987 he helped Kingscourt reach the Ulster Club final, only to lose to Burren, who went on to win the All-Ireland title. They made it back to another Ulster Club decider in 1990, only to lose to the Derry champions Lavey, who also ended up winning the All-Ireland.

“In Kingscourt they feel the ’87 final was the one that got away. We were beaten by a very good Burren team, with players like Tommy McGovern, Paddy Kennedy, Paddy O’Rourke, Brendan McGovern, Shorty Treanor. They’d some team.

“I remember chatting to Paddy O’Rourke and he said the game against Kingscourt was the toughest game they had all year. There was only a point in it. I remember Brendan McGovern coming up from wing-back and hitting the winning point. It’s amazing the little incidences you remember from matches and that’s one I remember vividly. It sticks in your craw.

“But I was still rooting for Burren to go on and win the All-Ireland. Hats off to them for doing so. I’m an Ulster man to the backbone having played against those lads so often. I’m very pro-Ulster in terms of football.”

Still though, eight championship medals is some haul, and he says it helps to compensate for the fact he didn’t win an Ulster title for Cavan.

“That’s a regret, but I’ve eight Senior Championship medals with Kingscourt and you can’t win them all. I enjoyed my time with Kingscourt and Cavan and you were always hoping you’d keep the flame lit for the next lads coming through.

“I suppose I won so early with the club that I always had a huge longing to win with the county. I always think of Pat Tinnelly, he was a Kingscourt man and he won an Ulster medal in 1969 with Cavan. He then won a club medal in 1980 and it meant more to him than the rest of us, and he bowed out as soon as he got it. He was trying so long and for him it was really personal.

I was the other way around. I got my club medal early and was trying so long for Cavan but it just didn’t happen. It’s all about a team and you can’t win it by yourself. You have to be lucky to be part of a good extended panel, and it was even the same for the great Kerry team in those days.

“Having said that, representing Ulster was always a big deal for me. I was flying the flag for Cavan as I was the only one playing for Ulster in the eighties pretty much. I always felt I was representing Kingscourt and Cavan, and was hoping I’d leave some sort of a trail for the next generation coming through.

“There were five Kingscourt players regularly playing for Cavan – myself, Joe Dillon, Mickey and Pat Faulkner, and Barry McArdle. It sowed the seeds for Kingscourt today, they had no real tradition until we got going, and I think everyone fears Kingscourt now. We’re on the periphery of Monaghan, Meath and Cavan. It’s a long spin to Breffni Park and people are way of us because they never really know what Kingscourt are going to bring.”

Even though he lives in Carlow, it’s obvious that Kingscourt still means an awful lot to him. His two sons have fared well playing in Carlow, though he isn’t a fan of how defensively the county team set up during Turlough O’Brien’s tenure.

“There’s a lot a lot of blue blood in my veins between Kinscourt and Cavan. James has three championship medals I think and played for Eire Og in a Leinster Championship final. Stephen plays with Pallintine and has two medals.

“I’d go to Carlow’s home matches, but I think it’s just not as exciting as in my day. I remember Stephen was playing for Carlow, and I asked him how he’s getting on, and he said ‘I’m not allowed to cross the halfway line.’

“I was chatting to Turlough, he’s a nice fella, but I said ‘can you not go and have a cut at teams?’ and he said ‘ah you can’t do that, we’re not good enough to go toe-to-toe, we have to set up defensively.’

“You see where he’s coming from but if someone told me I couldn’t cross the halfway line, I wouldn’t be long getting out of there as it was a big part of my game – trying to put pressure on the half-forward to follow me rather than vice-versa.

“I was speaking to Cian Mackey a couple of years ago as well. He’s sorta spanned the last two eras, and I asked him how he’s getting on, and he said ‘as long as you don’t kick it away you’ll be alright.’ They’ve a statistician in the crowd and you get lambasted if you kick it away. They put in such a mammoth effort but as a spectacle I’m not sure it’s going the right way as there’s far less physical contact and hits being put in.”

Reilly kept on plugging away for Cavan until 1993 before deciding to retire for good from both club and county football. He found adjusting to his new life difficult, but he knew it was time to move on.

“I was 33 when I decided to retire, and only I was on the road that much I probably would’ve stuck at it for another year or two.

“But I didn’t like the idea of keeping young lads off the team – there’s this idea that you can’t drop a county player, it’s the same in every club.

“If I was living locally I could’ve kept on going, but the thought of leaving young lads off the team made me say, ‘here, bye bye’.

“Kingscourt probably weren’t in a position to win more titles at that stage, but they were in relegation trouble either and I just thought it was best to let the young lads at it.

“I was friendly with the chairman and had given him the heads up that it was coming, he wanted me to stay on but I’d had enough.

“I was in Dundalk, near Kingscourt, but if you were playing Mullahoran nearly over in Longford, it was so much travelling and I just got cheesed off with it at that stage. I’d young kids at that stage and I was wanted at home.”

He continued: “I was nearly at it every night at the week and all of a sudden I had all this time on my hands, took me a while to settle down and get back into a groove.

“I did miss it. It took up a huge part of my life with club and county and all of a sudden it came to a halt.

“I never ran the roads, I never did gym work in my life, but I could be training or playing every night of the week back in the day. I did that and nothing else. Training, playing and a bit of work in between.

“If I was ever asked to play rugby or soccer in Dublin, I was the first man there, and when I was captain of Cavan, I’d never say no if I was asked to play at the opening of pitches, so sport was basically my life. I was lucky never to get any injuries, and I enjoyed the craic and everything that went with it.”

Despite being lucky with injury, he did opt to get a recent hip replacement to improve his quality of life.

“I went to a consultant I know, and he said the only reasons we do it or severe pain and quality of life. I said I’m not in severe pain, but that I could be stiff for a couple of days after walking the dog.

“He said he could prescribe me painkillers but I’d need to get it done eventually.

“I said ‘it’s now I need the quality of life, I mightn’t even make 70’ so I got it done.

“I went in on a Friday and was out on a Monday, and it was the best thing I ever did. It’s amazing what they can do these days. It was probably wear and tear from sport, I played so much I guess.”

Reilly also said that he’s happy to be a spectator these days, even though he could easily have got into management.

“I’ve never managed anyone. I always felt if they weren’t as good as me, I’d find it hard to accept that they couldn’t do what I could do, if that makes sense? I’d get frustrated. I had several offers, but when I got off the road, I wasn’t going back on it. That was me, thanks very much.”