ARVAGEDDON!
Cavan underdogs plan to wreak havoc in Croker final
IF you want to get a measure of the intimacy which defines the parish of Arva, you will find it in Ciaran Brady’s unofficial baptismal certificate. The name his parents gave him is only employed for official correspondence, otherwise he is simply known as ‘Holla’.
There is no exotic reason for it other than the fact that the family homestead is located in a hollow, and with Bradys rooted all round the Cavan parish that borders Leitrim and Longford, confusion is avoided by putting even the most benign characteristics to identifiable use.
In fact, suggesting that Arva is a parish is a gross overestimation of its place in the world. To be precise, it is actually one third of one, sharing its clergy and air space with Killeshandra and Cornafean.
But tomorrow, led out by Brady, they will take their place on the most iconic piece of land in the country as they take on Kerry champions, Listowel Emmets, in the All-Ireland junior football final at Croke Park.
Their presence underpins the vision of the lower grade championships, which sought to make real the possibility of playing in an All-Ireland final, while defying the limitations of size and status.
In truth, their opponents might serve to contradict the latter as Listowel, coached by Kerry legend Marc Ó Sé, seek to become the 12th winners from the Kingdom in a competition that is only 21 years old.
Perhaps, it is best, then, that it is Arva that has been charged with facing down the odds. They have form in that regard, having looked like a club that were in free-fall having dropped from being a first-time senior club to the junior grade inside five years.
That they are stirring again should not be doubted – they may be junior in name but they are back playing senior league football in Cavan once more, validating the sense that they will arrive in Croke Park on an even footing.
And in Brady, they will have the best footballer on the field. It is no coincidence that when they were relegated in 2021, he was unavailable having ruptured his cruciate ligament in an Allianz league game earlier in the year against Longford.
Typically, that injury came when he was surfing a wave as an Ulster champion and an All-Star nominee in 2020. But then, highs and lows is the rhythm to which his career has danced.
After all, you won’t find too many Ulster champions who also possess a Division 4 league medal, but he confesses that if he put everything he has won in a pile to this point, nothing would beat the feeling of winning tomorrow.
‘I’m playing county football since 2015,’ he explained.
‘To be honest with you, when you’re playing county football you really might only get only two or three months with the (club) lads because you miss most of the league, you come back and the way it is with knock-out if you don’t have a successful year then you’re out pretty early and you’re back in with the county for pre-season.
‘This is the longest run I’ve ever had with the club so it is really a throwback to forging those relationships again which I probably missed out on because of missing those (club) league campaigns over all those years.
‘I’d say it will trump all if we can get over the line on Sunday,’ he insists.
Typically, Brady has shown them the way, not least in producing a man of the match performance in the Ulster final against Blackhill.
But the frantic nature of the competition – it was only last weekend that they comfortably saw off Kildare champions Milltown – has provided them with a genuine challenge.
‘It’s been tough and we have a lot of lads getting treatment this week, a few lads will be touch and go, maybe three or four lads, to make the starting 15 but it is a tight turnaround and we only have five or six days to prepare for Listowel.
‘The look quite strong and look a fit physical outfit and I’m sure they will have the favourites tag going into the game but hopefully we can give a good account of ourselves.’
They will hope for more than that, especially given what they have invested in it.
‘We didn’t really have a Christmas around Arva,’ explains Brady.
‘We actually trained Christmas Eve and we were back at it again on St Stephen’s Day. Christmas went out the door a bit for us. Our full-back James Morris got married on New Year’s Eve so we were all at that but it was an extremely quiet affair I can tell you.’
Rest assured, if they win tomorrow they will make up for it.