By Michael Devlin

It’s a tricky situation at the moment in Cavan as they knuckle down for the 2019 inter-county football season.

On one hand, they greet the new year back in Division One of the Allianz National Football league with the vindication that they’ve found an exciting new man at the helm in Mickey Graham.

The former county star was ratified as the new Breffni boss back in August following Mattie McGleenan's departure, but he has since gone on to make all the headlines with his heroics at Mullinalaghta, delivering their third successive Longford county title before a memorable Leinster triumph over Kilmacud Crokes.

Graham’s current stock couldn’t be higher, and with former All-Star Dermot McCabe and Monaghan native Martin Corey joining him on the coaching ticket, there is a formidable management team in place for the new season.

However, that success with Mullinalaghta has brought a major challenge for Graham, who now must balance their All-Ireland Club run with the start of Cavan’s National League campaign. The Laurels meet Kerry and Munster champs Dr Crokes in the semi-final on February 16th, by which time Cavan will already have three Division One games under their belt.

And so, a hectic winter period is in store for the Cavan Gaels clubman, who has managed the county minors and also delivered junior and intermediate Cavan titles to Butlersbridge and Drumalee respectively.

Former Cavan captain Ronan Flanagan says that while the situation is “not ideal”, he has every confidence in Graham’s back-room team will adequately share the load and get the Breffni County off to a positive start in 2019.

“It’s not ideal in a Cavan setting. At the same time, it’s an amazing achievement with Mullinalaghta, and congratulations to them and Mickey. Going forward with Cavan in the league, the league is important with Cavan because we’re back in Division One now.

“You’d want him to solely focus on Cavan, but he has good men with him, Dermot McCabe and Martin Corey, and I’m sure they’ll lead the ship.

“Mickey has been extremely successful in his managerial career. There’s definitely renewed hope that Mickey is the right man. He has a good team with him to change things in Cavan and move forward again.”

“He’s done amazing work, but it does bring extra pressure going forward with Cavan, as people expect that again. I think a lot of our players will row in beside Mickey and he’ll get the best out of them.”

Flanagan himself has had a year to remember. He and his Casterahan colleagues banished three years of painful memories to finally land their maiden Cavan Senior Football Championship at the fourth successive time of asking.

Captain Flanagan got his hands on the Oliver Plunkett Cup after a gripping encounter with Crosserlough, coming from six points down with 15 minutes to go to eventually clinch it by just a point, ending the eternal wait for glory for the Ballyjamesduff men.

“It was very special, and we’re still on a high I suppose,” says Flanagan, whose leadership and influence coming down the home straight was essential to Castlerahan’s triumph.

“It’s amazing to be the first Castlerahan team to win it. I suppose it’s surreal, and there was definitely relief. We’d lost in 2011 as well, so there’s four finals we’d lost in a short space of time, so to be fair to the lads, they’ve kept coming back. It was never a case of we weren’t able to do it, just a matter of keep plugging at it and hopefully our time would come.

“In 2005 I started playing club senior football. We won a minor championship in 2005, and Under 21s in 2006 and 2007, so you would think a senior championship was around the corner, but unfortunately, we had to wait.”

With that line now crossed, the challenge for Flanagan and Castlerahan is building on the success and ensuring that 2018 was not just flash in the pan amongst the club’s recent history as Cavan’s nearly men. He is well aware of how tough the competition will be again as they defend the title next year.

“No more than in Ulster, it’s a very open field. I’d say if you talk to any club in Cavan they’d feel they could win it, and rightly so. We’ve had numerous different winners over the years.

“We’ve been there and thereabouts, probably the most consistent unsuccessful team. But Cavan Gaels will be back strong, along with Ramor, Crosserlough, Lacken, a lot of really good teams.”

There is a slight tinge of regret however for Flanagan that Castlerahan didn’t make their mark on the Ulster club scene. They lost out to Derry’s Eoghan Rua Coleraine in the quarter-final stage, and Flanagan believes that with the way the championship panned out, and how Gaoth Dobhair upset the odds to come through and clinch the title, that Castlerahan could have been in that mix with a shout.

“We played against Coleraine with very little preparation,” he admits. “Unfortunately, we maybe celebrated a bit too much. We realised then it was a chance missed when we looked back at it.

“Coleraine should have beaten Scotstown, and Scotstown could have beaten Gaoth Dobhair, so it shows there doesn’t seem to be much between any team in Ulster, and that definitely gives us hope as a club, but it should give Cavan hope as it just shows that we’re well able to compete.

“The competitive nature of a human being, they’re greedy and they always want more. If someone had have said to me at the start of the year ‘you’ll win the league and the championship in Cavan’, I’d have taken their arm off.

“We hadn’t won a league since 2012 and we’d never won a Championship. To win both of those was fantastic, but being greedy and competitive you want more, so it defiantly was a chance missed.”

Flanagan called time on his Cavan county career a few years ago after a decade of service in the blue jersey, from which he cites taking on the captaincy in 2009 as a personal highlight. On a team front, he has fond memories of beating Derry after extra-time in an All-Ireland Round Three qualifier in Celtic Park in 2013.

That day Damien Reilly rescued the draw with a late point, and Cavan went on to add 1-4 in extra time to emerge six-point winners in a climax that evoked nostalgic memories for Flanagan.

“That victory over up in Derry after extra-time was huge. You had all the supporters on the pitch and it just felt like the old days when you went as a child to watch Cavan.

“I’ve done my time,” says Flanagan as he casts his mind over his career. “Obviously there’s times where you’d love to still be part of it, but no I’ve definitely done my time. I love training, but the training load is so heavy now, it takes up so much of your personal life.

“I was ready to finish when I did, and I don’t regret anything I did in the past. I had ten great years with Cavan and I’d love to see them doing well, but I don’t think I’m physically at the level I’d need to be at to play that level, which would hurt me to have to sit and watch lads playing.”

Cavan’s previous foray into Division One was a short one, relegated after a solitary season in the top flight in 2017. Being back amongst the top teams in the country is only a good thing for the development of Cavan football according to Flanagan, who believes playing against the elite teams consistently will drive up standards across the board. Staying up there is the objective.

“You have to aim to stay at the top, because if you’re consistently playing the best teams, you’re going to get better. If we can stay up there and play against the Dubs, the Kerrys, the Tyrones, whoever else is up there at the time, you’re only going to get better and the players coming through will get better, because they’re used to a better standard of football.”

The monkey on the back however remains the absence of the Anglo-Celt Cup in the county. Over two decades have passed since the Ulster win of 1997, and they haven’t been in the final since 2001.

There was a real sense that a breakthrough was on the horizon when Cavan reeled off four successive Ulster Under 21 titles from 2011 through to 2014, but that promise has still not come to fruition.

“The Ulster title is what Cavan is after,” says Flanagan. “We all saw it in 1997 and we’ve been all trying to get back there and win it. Especially with the Under 21s coming through you were thinking the time is right now, but it never came.

“Monaghan beat us twice, in 2013 and 2015, by a point, and both times they went on to win Ulster. They’re the small margins, and you have to get across the line against those consistently good teams.

“I think there is a gap, but I don’t think the gap is as big as people think it is, or maybe as big as the teams themselves think. The likes of Cavan, Armagh, Fermanagh, Down, if they got their house in order, they could beat any of those teams, and rightly so. But to be fair to Donegal, Monaghan and Tyrone, they’ve been the most consistent and I think that comes with playing at the highest level.”