SEAN CAVANAGH is still “living the dream” with Tyrone, but this looks likely to be his last season with the Red Hands.
The three-time Sam Maguire-winner admitted on Thursday that, at the age of 33, there’s a “fair chance” he’ll hang up his inter-county boots when this summer’s Championship campaign comes to an end: “I’d say there’s a fair chance, there’s no point in me saying any different,” said the Moy clubman who will spearhead Tyrone attack against Cavan in the NFL Division Two final before he switches his attention to Derry in the Ulster Championship.
“I’m 33 now and, like anything in life, the injuries start niggling at you a wee bit. I’m lucky enough at the moment that I’m in pretty good shape, but it just gets tougher; it gets tougher every year for the time commitment and the injuries and everything to do with it. You always think about these things in the off-season, but I’d say there’s a fair chance it will be.”
It goes without saying that Cavanagh, a five-time Allstar, would prefer to leave the stage in September with a fourth Celtic cross in his collection. But he says he doesn’t believe in “fairytale endings” and he won’t solider on in the hope of getting a ticker-tape send-off at Croke Park.
“I’m long enough in the game now to know there’s no such thing as fairytale endings,” he said.
“To be honest, I’d say if we had’ve made it to the final last year and if we had’ve won it, I think I would have been happy to walk away. There is always that wee bit in you, and I think it happens every sportsperson, that you’ll always want that wee bit more but I’ve been around long enough to know that you shouldn’t overstay your welcome either.
“It does get more difficult to put out the same energy as what you had done in years gone past. But at the moment I’m still living the dream, I’m still loving playing football for Tyrone. I love every night at training and I love being part of the group but you have to be realistic that it is coming to an end; it’s coming to an end very soon. You relish every day as I am right now.”
One by one Cavanagh’s All-Ireland-winning team-mates: Brian Dooher, Conor Gormley, Philip Jordan and Stephen O’Neill have decided to call it quits. Now, with a talented clutch of All-Ireland U21 winners coming through, Cavanagh says he doesn’t intend to stay past his sell-by date.
“There’s a serious team coming behind me and I suppose you have to give them their day as well,” he said.
“You never say never; but I always had made the promise to myself and to my wife that I wouldn’t want to see myself limping to the end. It’s not fair to do that on the team either that it would be come to the stage where you are living on a reputation or something like that. I don’t want to be that sort of a person.
“I just said to myself as long as I’m fit and healthy and enjoying myself I would do it. As years go on it just gets tougher to maintain that level of training. I was speaking a couple of months ago to Philip Jordan and saying: ‘God, training has become so much more difficult’.
“I remember thinking to myself at the time: Is it because you are getting older or is it because of the players in GAA at the moment? I genuinely believe it’s the type of player. There used to always be a group of corner-backs or corner-forwards that were never as athletically powerful as maybe somebody playing around the middle.
“Those type of players are gone; everyone now is a serious athlete first and foremost, and probably, to a certain extent, a footballer secondary.”
