Raymond Galligan isn’t the youngest manager on the inter-county beat - another former Cavan goalkeeper, New York boss Alan O’Mara, is younger again - but he does lack experience.
It was only last summer that Galligan was playing for Cavan himself, his final game a Tailteann Cup quarter-final defeat to Down in mid-June.
So when the 36-year-old was thrown the Breffni reins a few months later, he sensibly figured that he would perhaps need as much coaching as the players themselves.
“When Ray rang me, I didn’t know what he wanted me for,” explained Eamonn Murray, the Cavan and Gowna native who guided the Meath ladies to All-Ireland senior titles in 2021 and 2022.
It turned out that Murray, living in Meath for decades and heavily attached to the Boardsmill club and Royal County ladies’ teams, was the figure Galligan had in mind to be his mentor.
“He’s a great man, you couldn’t say no to him,” said Murray.
“He’s a very ambitious young man so look, I said, yeah, I’d give it a shot. I went back home first of course to the wife and kids and asked them.
“We were under too much pressure the last few years, you’d need a few years off. But then I was sitting at home and my wife said to me, ‘Go on back, you’re grumpy at home!’”
Despite never having been involved in a coaching capacity with a men’s team before, Murray took up the offer and has loved the last six months or so.
“I didn’t know what to think about it at the start,” said Murray.
“Ray told me that there’d be no pressure on me, that I’m only there to help him along, to coach him really, not coach the players. I’m just helping him the whole time, in everything he says, that he does, what way we talk to the players or the media or whatever else has to be done. That’s my job.”
Initially, it wasn’t guaranteed that the pair would even get on, let alone ham-and-egg. They’d never met or talked before.
A meeting was set up for Trim in Meath and they chatted for an hour and a half. It was soon clear that they shared many of the same ideas and a speed-dial connection on their phones was quickly established.
“James Burke and Stephen O’Neill do all the coaching, Ray is the manager, I’m kind of tricking around talking to everybody every night,” said Murray.
“I get around as many people as I can, chatting and chatting. That’s what I did in Meath as well. I had my own coaches in Meath as well so they did all that end of things. It’s much the same job as I had in Meath.”
Ray told me that there’d be no pressure on me, that I’m only there to help him along, to coach him really, not coach the players. I’m just helping him the whole time, in everything he says, that he does, what way we talk to the players or the media or whatever else has to be done. That’s my job.
— Eamonn Murray
Murray rates it as a successful season so far. Cavan finished third in Division Two, well off promotion but relegation was never any great concern either and they will compete for the Sam Maguire Cup this summer.
The challenge will rise significantly this weekend with a trip to Clones to play neighbouring Monaghan in the Ulster SFC.
It’s a derby game of sorts though it’ll hardly compare, in Murray’s mind at least, to the night Cavan played Meath in the League at Kingspan Breffni at the start of March.
“It was the worst night of my life,” said Murray, who has lived in Meath for the guts of 40 years and raised a family there.
“An hour beforehand, an hour after, I couldn’t....I just sat in the dugout with my head down. I couldn’t watch it, I couldn’t do it.”
The evening that the Cavan management team was announced and Murray’s name was included, he got a text message from Padraic Harnan.
Padraic, who played for Tailteann Cup winners Meath last year, is the nephew of two-time All-Ireland winner Liam Harnan, Murray’s brother-in-law.
“Pardaic said, ‘Eamonn, I’m delighted that someone has believed in you again’,” revealed Murray. “A nice little simple thing to say to me.”
Murray believes in this crop of Cavan players too and their rookie manager who is learning as he goes.
“This year the big thing was to stay in Division Two and that’s done, plus we’re also in the (Sam Maguire) Championship which is a very big thing for Cavan,” he said.
“We weren’t in that the last few years, we were in the Tailteann Cup. We’re in that this year and we’ll look forward to it. So far it has been a successful year for us, very much so.
“We might give a few teams a rattle yet in the Championship, we’ll see what happens. We’ll get the players back fully fit, we still have a few injuries but we’d like to rattle a few teams, yeah. And if we don’t, we’ll enjoy trying!”