Tyrone captain Seán Cavanagh has called on his younger county colleagues to rise to the challenge of leadership. He was speaking in Melbourne after Ireland's practice match victory over a VFL selection and in the wake of the decisions of team-mates Stephen O'Neill and Martin Penrose to retire.
“Stevie was always going to be a big leader and the guys are always going to look up to him. But we have to step up to the mark. Hopefully the likes of Joe [McMahon] and Conor [Gormley] will stay around.
“Some of the younger guys who have come through the ranks in the last few years haven’t stepped up in terms of leadership in the way that they need to step up. It is their opportunity now to show what they can do. We can no longer rely on the guys who won us All-Irelands.”
A former footballer of the year, O'Neill was one of the most talented forwards of the past 15 years, winning three All-Ireland medals.
“He is probably the most natural scorer I have ever played with,” said Cavanagh.
“I played with [Peter] Canavan and Canavan is probably the greatest player to have ever played the game. But in terms of natural scoring instinct, especially in ’05, whenever he had a run of games for about a year he was one of those guys who could win a game on his own.
“He probably won us the All-Ireland. The injuries always seemed to catch up with Stevie and that is sad because we never really saw his true potential, barring that one year.”
Cavanagh added that he had been hearing dire warnings about what Australia might do to Ireland in next weekend’s Test.
Most formidable
He says it looks like the most formidable AFL team he has faced in career that by next week will see him become the fourth most capped Ireland player in the 30-year history of the international series.
“I think so, from what I hear. We were down around the town for the last couple of days. We were chatting to a few of the Australian supporters. They were more or less telling us that we were in for a hiding next week. They were saying that they have seven captains from the AFL teams.
“We are hearing all these names of these star players and how fast they can run and how hard they can hit. It is going to be a massive challenge. I was out here in the ’05 series and the Australians completely wiped us. We have to be going in there to compete with them.”
“I would rather have that than beating a team by 100 points. We won quite easily last year and we know it is not going to be like that.
“That is the challenge for us. That is why we put on this Irish jersey. That is how you get that excitement and that fulfilment from knowing that you can compete with the best.”
