SEAN Cavanagh has had many proud moments during his illustrious career and yesterday afternoon at Clones was right there at the top of them as he captained the O’Neill County to a 14th Anglo Celt success and a first since 2010.
The big Moy man led by example with three crucial points in the second half, the latter an outstanding effort in injury-time to level matters at 0-11 each.
After that score Peter Harte and Kieran McGeary followed their leader with breathtaking scores as well as the Red Hands became provincial kingpins once again.
Cavanagh’s leveller two minutes into added time was pivotal and he admitted that he was just glad that it went over.
“I still don’t know how it went over to be honest,” he said.
“When I kicked it I thought that it was going to drop into the keeper’s hands but thankfully it went over. I was lucky to get on the end of it but credit has to go to Johnny Munroe for the tackle that he put in on Frank McGlynn.
‘‘I’m playing football an awful long time but that was as good a win as I’ve been involved in. When a game is in the melting pot some players may hide but in the last 10 minutes there we had an awful lot of characters who wanted the ball and wanted to do damage. It made me immensely proud to be part of a side like that.
‘‘I’m not bluffing whenever I say that this is one of the strongest squads that I have ever been involved in. There are guys who didn’t even take the field there today who would get their place on most county teams.
I see it in Garvaghey every night, I have saw it for a few years that players were coming to the fore. The skill, the power, the pace of them, it’s getting tougher for the likes of me to keep up with them but I’m just so proud to be part of it.”
Tyrone win Ulster final against Donegal #ulsterfinal pic.twitter.com/tN9GkCjqCE — The Irish News (@irish_news) July 17, 2016
Things weren’t looking good for Tyrone when Paddy McBrearty edged Donegal four clear in the opening attack of the second half, with Tyrone having lost Mattie Donnelly and Cathal McShane to black cards late in the opening period, but that’s when they stood up to be counted.
“It’s a bit of a cliché but whenever you see the quality of our players it’s great that they can express themselves on big occasions like this,” said Sean.
“It never is a perfect script and in the first half it looked as though it was going away from us. We were very honest with each other at half-time that it wasn’t good enough for Tyrone.
‘‘It was going the same way as the previous games in Ballybofey and if we didn’t change things we were going to lose another game to Donegal.
‘‘I asked the players before they went out for the second half that we have to make a statement not for Mattie Donnelly, not for Cathal McShane, not for Sean Cavanagh or Mickey Harte but for Tyrone and that’s what the guys did. Whenever they had to go to the well they did and they did things that were outside their comfort zone.”
It’s a fifth Ulster senior championship medal for the Moy man and he admitted the hurt of losing big games in recent times drove them on to victory at St Tiernachs Park.
“I suppose we had lost that many games in the last five or six years and we are proud people in Tyrone and it’s hard to lose those games knowing that we have a serious squad and potential,” said Cavanagh.
“We lost to Kerry last year in the All-Ireland semi-final and we felt that we didn’t do ourselves justice at Croke Park and we felt that there was more in this team, we knew there was more in this team.
‘‘We were unbeaten in Division Two this year but everyone was saying that we hadn’t beaten a Division One side yet and all that emotion came to the fore at the end against a side who always had the hoodoo over us.
‘‘We made a statement there today for Tyrone football and hopefully that will be the start of something special.’’
