Give yourself some credit, Sean.
If you’ve been living under a rock, Tyrone are Ulster champions.
If you’ve been living under a stone beneath that rock, Sean Cavanagh was bloody inspirational in steering them to a first championship title since 2010.
There are legends… then there is Sean Cavanaghhttps://t.co/8hkAC7Z4Hw #GAA #Tyrone
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) July 17, 2016
The 33-year-old ran bloody riot around Clones during the second half against Donegal as he dragged his county over the line with an unstoppable display after the break.
Three beautiful points topped off a tireless performance that saw the Moy man scale St. Tiernach’s Park like it was 2002 again.
And he’s not even sure how it all came together.
In an interview with SportsJOE’s GAA Hour podcast after the game, Cavanagh joked with Colm Parkinson about his feats.
CP: Sean, you’re not supposed to have the legs to kick three points in a game like that in the second half.
SC: I have no idea what’s going on. I hope the drug-testers aren’t here today!
CP: You must be disappointed with your technique for that third score. You skied it. You need a bit more control in those situations.
SC: I swear to God, I kicked that ball and went ‘no, no, Sean, what are you doing? You’ve dropped another into the keeper’s hands.’ I have no idea how but it just kept going and going and going. I don’t know who blew it over the net, it must’ve been somebody in the sky who blew it over.
In 16 years, he’s done a fair bit.
Three teams and three shirt sponsors have come during Cavanagh’s tenure as a Tyrone legend but the performance on Sunday was one of the most heartening of all.
“It’s special. Whenever we needed to go to the well – we kicked an awful lot of bad misses and losing an inspirational player like Mattie was always going to be tough – but we really needed to go to the well today and some guys stood up,” the skipper told The GAA Hour.
“We got over the line. The biggest part was probably the grit and determination to get over the line. It wasn’t champagne football, it wasn’t the beautiful, running football that we like to play but, look, there’s going to be games like this.
“I remember sitting here in 2010 and thinking, ‘ah well, it’s just another trophy.’ It didn’t mean too much, it was just another step. You grow up standing on the hill, watching the Canavans and the like of Adrian Cush and the Ciaran Corrs of Tyrone doing the business on sunny days in Clones. To do it as captain is a dream come true. To walk those steps, particularly when I know my career is coming to an end, it really did mean a lot.
“Some people probably thought I was a bit mad the last couple of years. I could see the nucleus of a real team coming, you only have to stand in Garvaghey with these guys to see the athleticism and the power and the skill that some of them have. I knew there was enough to form a real good team.”
Listen to the full interview at 20 minutes and 40 seconds on The GAA Hour below. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by clicking this link.
https://soundcloud.com/user-787320910/the-gaa-hour-with-colm-parkinson-tyrone-and-galway-are-back-but-these-dubs-are-not-going-away
