THE countdown is well and truly under way towards Tyrone’s All-Ireland final date with Mayo – but former Red Hand midfielder Colm Cavanagh insists that while he’d love to be there, he has no regrets over spurning an offer to rejoin the panel earlier this year.
Cavanagh brought the curtain down on his inter-county career before last year’s rescheduled All-Ireland Championship, but was asked to reconsider when the new management team of Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher took over from Mickey Harte.
The Moy man gave it plenty of thought as the start of the 2021 inter-county campaign was pushed back, eventually opting to stick with his previous decision and remain retired.
Watching from the wings has been hard, especially as Tyrone went on to win Ulster before stunning Kerry at Croke Park last Saturday, but Cavanagh is convinced he made the right call.
“Looking back at the start of the year whenever I was asked to come back in, it would have been very attractive given the set-up and given I knew in my head there was a chance they could do something this year,” said the 34-year-old, an Allstar in 2017 and 2018.
“So that’s been tough to watch in a way but, to be honest, whenever I made the decision this year I knew this could happen and I’m fully behind the lads. I’m delighted to see the intensity and the way they are playing at the moment, they seem to have a new lease of life.
“Probably from one side you're watching the games and thinking ‘I’d love to be still playing’ but my time is run so I have to get on with it, enjoy it and get behind the lads.
“It’s fantastic to see what they are doing, knowing a lot of them so personally and keeping in touch with them back and forth over the last few months. I’m delighted to see where they are at and what they have achieved so far.”
Ultimately, it was his own personal circumstances away from football which dictated that Cavanagh wouldn’t come back for another crack.
He said: “There was that draw but when I looked at it from my own point of view, and circumstances at that time with work and stuff, it was very difficult.
“I did reflect on it mid-year and my lifestyle at the moment doesn’t suit playing inter-county football. I’m travelling most weeks back and forth to England and I knew in the back of my head there was going to be a problem at some point down the line, even though talking to Brian early in the year they would try and accommodate it.
“I knew if I was if I going to commit to something like this again I would have to put all that on hold, and when you get to 34 your priorities have to start shifting.
“In the end the work thing probably swung it and, in a way, in the last couple of years of playing I probably wasn't enjoying it as much. Once the fun factor goes out of it, I felt that coupled with work commitments, it wasn't going to work.
“I wouldn’t have been doing anyone a service by going back in to try and take a position or saying ‘I need to be playing here. It just wasn’t going to work.”
