Latest news with #SeánCavanagh
The 42
5 days ago
- Sport
- The 42
'I don't think there's someone in Croke Park trying to take Donegal down'
FORMER TYRONE STAR Seán Cavanagh has questioned Donegal's approach to articulating their frustration over their hectic fixture schedule, and doesn't believe that they are being harshly treated by Croke Park. Jim McGuinness has been vocal about this issue recently, and was fiercely critical of the decision to choose Roscommon's Dr. Hyde Park as the neutral venue for their All-Ireland round-robin game against Mayo earlier this month. He said 'it would only happen because it's us' after that one-point victory. This week, Donegal GAA released a statement slamming the six-day turnaround between their All-Ireland preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final win over Louth, and their quarter-final clash with Monaghan this Saturday. 'I would wonder whether there's different messages going out externally as to what's maybe going out internally,' Cavanagh began when asked for his interpretation of Donegal's reaction to their grievances. Advertisement Three-time All-Ireland winner Seán Cavanagh. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO 'If you were to maybe draw up a master plan, you'd maybe want to have that little bit of external, 'the world is against us'. I think that's standard. Every team that's won anything has always used that at some point in time.' 'I don't think for one minute that there's someone in Croke Park trying to take Jim and Donegal down. So I certainly see it as just one of those things. I don't think the players need to be thinking too much about it.' Tyrone's three-time All-Ireland winner also pointed to the importance of player welfare and understands Donegal's obligation to 'look after players.' The Ulster champions are the only team in the final eight with a six-day break before their quarter-final. But Cavanagh added that he never felt he could criticise fixtures during his playing days, and suspects that McGuinness could be communicating the wrong message to his panel. 'You can see the frustration that's there from him. It's obviously been in his head for the last number of weeks. 'I'm not totally sure it's the right thing to do. He'll be better at psychology than I would be, but from a coach's perspective, I would think it's not a great thing to be telling your players that they're tired. 'I remember whenever we were in those five or six weekends in a row, the way Mickey Harte would have been dressing [it] up to us would have been, 'think of all the great competitive games we're getting here, how much sharper we are.' 'And when you look at it in the cold light of day, Donegal losing to Tyrone in Ballybofey knocked them back. And they lost that gap, that extra week of rest that we've all spoken about is so valuable this time of year. 'But as a player, I always felt we didn't really have the entitlement to sort of change when the fixtures were there.' Looking at the other teams still left in the championship, Cavanagh feels his own native Tyrone has not performed yet to their capabilities but that a crunch match against old rivals Dublin could be the spark that brings their season to life. 'I think we're back heading in the right direction. Saturday night presents itself as a really big opportunity to lay down a marker that we're heading back in the right direction.' He also feels Kerry are 'vulnerable' due to their injury concerns, as well as their reliance on David Clifford who hit 3-7 in their preliminary quarter-final win over Cavan. Barry-Dan O'Sullivan has been ruled out of the rest of the season with a knee injury, while Paul Geaney, Tony Brosnan and Diarmuid O'Connor are among those on the treatment table at the moment. Related Reads 'What a goal. That is one of the great goals we've seen in Croke Park. Magic, magic Mulligan!' Here's this week's GAA inter-county schedule and TV coverage 'Not a new issue' - GPA supports Donegal's frustration at short quarter-final turnaround He feels their quarter-final opponents — and defending All-Ireland champions — Armagh are the team to beat in this year's championship. 'They've had their injury concerns. They're very vulnerable. And they're coming up against a team that has probably 25 players that could play on Sunday. 'I think Armagh have brought a consistency in the standards that certainly I wasn't expecting. I always felt the years after we'd won All-Ireland we started to run out of gas a little bit. And, even psychologically, we started to show signs of tiredness. Armagh haven't shown anything like that because they're able to drop in five or six guys that are freshening the team up.' Seán Cavanagh was speaking ahead of the 2025 Electric Ireland GAA All-Ireland Minor Championship Finals.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Sean Cavanagh believes ‘the sight of a Dublin jersey' can inspire Tyrone to come of age
If Tyrone fail to beat Dublin in Saturday evening's All-Ireland SFC quarter-final, that'll be just nine wins in the championship from 21 outings since they won the All-Ireland four years ago . Dig down into that poor record and it reveals three seasons that ended early: at the qualifier stage in 2022, at the quarter-final stage in 2023 when they were heavily beaten by Kerry, and at the preliminary quarter-final stage last year, when Roscommon dumped them out. Only once have they won two championship games in a row in that period, while they were dumped out of Division One earlier this season . Seán Cavanagh understands that if Tyrone lose to Dublin at Croke Park on Saturday, it's going to be another long winter. READ MORE He is in an optimistic mood, though, when speaking at a promotion to highlight the Electric Ireland All-Ireland minor championship finals. For starters, he feels Dublin are in the same boat; needing to win to avoid the season being a failure but knowing that, if they do win, anything is then possible. Having viewed the last few years since that 2021 All-Ireland final defeat of Mayo as 'rebuild territory', he reckons the foundations are now in place for a new era of Tyrone success. 'What a chance this is to re-announce ourselves back at the top table of football,' said Cavanagh, who won three All-Irelands in his playing days with the Red Hand County. 'I said this to the boys when I was leaving [in 2017], when Dublin beat us well, that there was an All-Ireland in this team,' he recalled. 'It almost felt that 2021, when they did win it, was the work of a seven-, eight- or nine-year period. 'A lot of those lads, the Mattie Donnellys, Petey Hartes, Conor Meyler, all those lads, Paudie Hampsey, they'd been building and had been the backbone of our 2015 All-Ireland Under-21 winning team. Kieran McGeary obviously as well. 'So I almost felt that was the pinnacle of that group, 2021. It felt like we were in a bit of rebuild territory after that and there were a lot of guys that left the year after. 'It's only really now that we feel we're kind of back where Tyrone football should be. But equally, and this kind of goes back to needing to win on Saturday evening, would beating Cavan and beating Donegal represent a great championship season for Tyrone? I don't think so. Former Tyrone footballer Seán Cavanagh at a preview event for the Electric Ireland All-Ireland minor finals at Croke Park. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho 'And look, the Donegal game was brilliant, a good performance, but I think we need more this year. So where we find ourselves is that if we want to get more, then we have to take out the Dubs in Croke Park. You can flip that around very quickly and say to the lads, 'look, what an opportunity this is for that team to really go and announce themselves'. 'I think if we were to come to Croke Park and beat the Dubs, that would be as good a performance as we had in the All-Ireland in '21.' Asked if the rebuild in Tyrone is complete, or if it will take another couple of years to fully integrate players from the All-Ireland winning Under-20 teams of 2022, 2024 and 2025, Cavanagh was again optimistic. 'I think the balance we have across the team, the age profile we have, it's really good,' said the five-time All Star. 'You have Petey Harte and Mattie Donnelly and these lads who are absolutely at the top end of their careers. The experience they can give is huge. 'We have a lovely bunch of players in the mid-to-late 20s category then. Then we have an incredible array of underage lads that are all going to drop into the mix and have dropped into the mix already. Just look at Eoin McElholm from the 20s and what he can bring. 'You get the feeling there's a big opportunity in the next few years in Tyrone to go back to being in All-Ireland semi-finals and finals, and expecting to be there. 'I think watching our near neighbours Armagh win last year and seeing where they're at at the minute, that will have stoked the fires enough for us to say, 'yeah, we have to get back there and we have the talent to get back there and we have the management to get back there'. It feels like all the building blocks are there for us to do it. It's just about time now that we have to arrive.' That vital consistency is the final missing piece for Tyrone. Their results so far in this year's championship sums things up for them; beat Cavan, lose to Armagh, beat Donegal, lose to Mayo, beat Cavan again. Cavanagh expects the sight of the Dublin jersey to inspire their best form. 'I think the sight of Croke Park and the sight of the Dubs and the sky blue jersey will definitely bring out whatever's in those players right now,' he said. 'As a supporter, I do feel there's a big performance in the team. I think the players all see it in that way. They'll all see it as an opportunity to bring it on Saturday night. 'Any time Tyrone has a good year, it usually takes a big game and the sight of something that will energise and excite the team to get it out of themselves. So I'm cautiously optimistic that the sight of a Dublin jersey on a Saturday night in Croke Park will do that.'
