Commitment and football go hand in hand like fish and chips. You’d wonder how many reach the finale of a career and wonder why they ever bothered. Not even bittersweet, just full on bitter. Salty as the ocean, or fish and chips.
Prior to 1988, Gowna probably had plenty of retirees who went through all the sacrifice for none of the reward. Little did they know the seeds they had sewn. These so-called golden generations are a fickle thing.
As Ray Houghton wheeled away in celebration against the English, Gowna’s first Cavan title soon followed. By the time Roy Keane stormed out of Saipan, they had won six of the previous nine.
Their fourth title in 1997 coincided so uncoincidentally with Cavan’s march to Anglo-Celt glory under Martin McHugh. Cue Cavan’s first ever All-Star, Dermot McCabe.
Now as a selector, he prepares his club for a third consecutive county final. But it hasn’t all been a tale of domination. Twenty barren years is evidence if anyone needed it that they don’t hand out Cavan SFC titles like Communion at Mass.
But in 2022, Gowna refused to wait any longer.
This year, even as reigning champions, the talk was all about Crosserlough. In James Smith, Paddy Lynch, and Dara McVeety, they possess three of the Breffni blues’ finest. An unbeaten league saw them instilled as championship favourites.
Meanwhile, the first hurdle of the group phase saw an unimpressive Gowna stumble rather than leap into the knockouts. With Killygarry one point up approaching injury time, a ‘45 could have meant curtains for 2023.
Instead, possession changed hands, Gowna equalised, and won the replay by three, as champions do.
Six minutes in against Crosserlough, and they were looking anything but champions. 0-05 to 0-00 down, a nightmare start was hauled back to the finest of margins by the break. Then came a Conor Madden goal, and the lead remained intact for the duration.
Gowna won that second half by a scarcely believable 1-10 to 0-05, with talisman Lynch sent off in injury time just in case anyone needed a statement to prove it wasn’t to be Crosserlough’s day. But the game had long since passed Lynch and his men by.
And now a meeting with Kingscourt will cause ripples for miles around Lough Gowna and beyond. In 1989, Kingscourt eked through a semi-final by the bare minimum, and the following year by two. They went on to win those finals by ten and nine respectively.
Then in 1999, Gowna gained revenge in the showpiece.
That two-in-a-row Kingscourt team boasted five intercounty starters. These days Pádraig Faulkner is the man who continues on that legacy, and his side will be boosted by the fact it is 14 years since any side has retained the Oliver Plunkett Cup.
Meath star Jordan Morris has also been in fine form. One of the more recent additions, but nonetheless, The Anglo Celt’s Paul Fitzpatrick noted that he is steeped in Stars’ tradition.
“Morris may have transferred from Nobber but he started his football journey with the Stars; when they won the title in 2010, he was on the team bus, driven by his Grandad.”
Neither of these sides are overly renowned for historical league successes, but perhaps it is a reflection of the game as a whole that the four league semi-finalists also found their way come championship.
Defeated by Crosserough in the Division 1 decider, Kingscourt will relish a second bite at the apple, but as heavy favourites, the orchard is Gowna’s.
Midfielder Ryan Donohue has come into form at the right time, while Tiarnan and Cian Madden’s pace should pose Owen and Brendan Lennon’s men problems.
In the other dugout, manager Fintan Reilly will be assisted by a man who has his fingerprints all over the Gowna DNA.
And there’s few who would back against Dermot McCabe’s latest Oliver Plunkett success in the second coming of Gowna’s golden generation.
