Cavanagh pleased to lend Moy a hand on and off the pitch

FORMER Tyrone star Sean Cavanagh has taken to the management game like a duck to water, but he says that the only thing that mattered to him was giving a dig out to his native Moy, who now find themselves in a Tyrone Intermediate final.

After a middling league campaign, player-manager Cavanagh took the reins with a few rounds of Division Two action remaining and it’s fair to say he’s made an immediate impact.

They’ve made it all the way to the Tyrone Intermediate final against Pomeroy on Saturday and he says he has a traditional approach to management, claiming that he has no interest down the line in managing any club other than his own.

The five-time All-Star said: “I’ve always said I wouldn’t manage anyone else other than my own club, I’m a bit of a traditionalist in that sense.

“These people are my family and my friends and I love the idea of helping my own people. I’ve seen quite a bit in football and I’ve been blessed with how things have gone for me as a player, and it’s just as nice to be able to help out your own community and enjoy some success with them.”

Cavanagh didn’t anticipate at the start of the season that he’d end up donning the Bainisteoir bib at the Moy but he was more than happy to answer the call when their season threatened to unravel.

“It wasn’t the plan at all. I’ve played under a lot of good managers and I think I’ve learnt quite a bit so I’m more than happy to dig in.

“I’m very busy with my own business so I definitely didn’t have any ambition of carving out any sort of managerial career for myself. But it’s my own club and in the middle of the summer the committee said we needed to stabilise things and it’s hard to say no when it’s your own people. It’s my son’s club, my father and grandfather’s, and you can’t say no.”

The Moy have been mightily impressive en route to the final, especially in their semi-final victory over Clonoe a fortnight ago. From the very word go, Clonoe had been in blistering form all season but they had their legs cut out from under them by a well-organised Moy side.

Cavanagh said: “There is that danger that sometimes you can read too much into league form and Clonoe had the run on most teams. That can be for a variety of factors, Pomeroy had two lads on county duty and we had a few lads away in America and things like that.

Clonoe seemed to have that continuity from day dot, they were beating teams by 10 or 15 points. That can be a danger and arguably softened them somewhat after winning the league. We knew we had to bring a big game and thankfully we did and it worked out. It’ll be a different game against Pomeroy but we’ve put ourselves in a good position.”

While there have been a few personnel changes in the meantime, the Moy can still draw upon the experience of winning the All-Ireland Intermediate title in early 2018, the proudest day in the club’s history and one that meant an awful lot to Cavanagh.

Pomeroy likewise won a Tyrone Intermediate title in 2016 and they didn’t do too badly at all outside the county, winning the Ulster Intermediate title.

Cavanagh said: “We had an amazing run the season we won the All-Ireland. We’d a few old timers like myself knocking around at that stage. It certainly wasn’t in our minds at all before this year’s campaign to be honest as we actually hadn’t won a championship match until we played Kildress in the first-round.

“We were four years without a championship win in the club and thankfully we got over that hurdle and got a few wins on the trot.

“I’m sure Pomeroy are thinking exactly the same, they won the Intermediate in 2016, they’ll know what winning the Championship feels like and they’ll be wanting to go on a similar journey. It’s two similar enough teams going into the final and there’s plenty of excitement around the Moy at the moment.”