'We’ll just give it our all' – Brecon Kavanagh

For 20 years at the start of this century, Offaly didn’t win a Leinster title in either football or hurling. Now, four years later, each of the last four years have seen one provincial title harvested, and tomorrow night’s game in Kilkenny will be the fourth All-Ireland final in as many years.

One of those finals – the 2021 U-20 football decider – went the way of the Faithful County. Brecon Kavanagh played in the other two, and now that his third big game is looming, the Kilcormac-Killoughey player feels that this group has raised the bar for themselves, and they’re demanding more.

“You could say that we want to win an All-Ireland, but I think this team needs to win an All-Ireland,” he told the Offaly Independent.

Stressing that this group of players has shown “a huge amount of hunger” to bounce back from previous defeats to reach another final, he said “we just can’t wait for Saturday now and we’ll just give it our all”.

Which of course begs the question – what has playing in two finals already done for the significant cohort of the team that did exactly that? Perhaps more important, what was the impact of losing the previous two?

“I think that we’ve shown that it hasn’t affected us long term,” said Brecon. “We’re back here now, twice since then (the minor final defeat). You can’t say that it has affected us. Most of us in this group, that’s our third consecutive Leinster title and we just want to or need to win an All-Ireland.

“You could say you get used to it a small bit, or that you can also relax that small bit more, and that’s true – but it’s still an incredible feeling. If you’re not nervous for days like this there’s something wrong. We’re not looking at it like it’s Tipp in Nowlan Park. We’re just looking at it as another game, another All-Ireland that we have to get over the line. It’s as simple as that.”

That’s an easy thing to say on the week of the All-Ireland final, when games against Dublin, Galway and Kilkenny have been safely negotiated and that’s the only hurdle that remains.

Kilkenny in particular, having beaten Offaly comfortably in the minor championship three years ago, looked like formidable opposition. Most teams would have set their sights on the Cats as their main target, or even perhaps a Galway side that reached the All-Ireland minor final of 2021, crushing Kilkenny in the semi-final on the way.

Kavanagh freely admits that even though they understood how good those teams might be, they still had bigger ambitions from the start.

“We know the hurling this group has. I’ll put it this way. Johnny P (Pilkington) came in at the start of this year and he said, ‘boys, we want to win an All-Ireland’, and that just sets you from the go. We have 60 to 70 minutes now to win an All-Ireland for Offaly, that’s our main focus. There’s a huge amount of belief in this group that we can have days like this. There’s one thing believing and another thing doing it and that’s what we’ve done.”

With every step of the journey, the connection with the crowd has grown deeper and deeper. Kavanagh acknowledges how fortunate they are to have captured the county’s hearts and minds, and how that support has made a big difference on several important occasions.

“This group relishes the big days, like in O’Connor Park against Kilkenny and the Leinster final. The 16th man has been unbelievable. The Offaly crowd would get you going, like against Kilkenny in the first ten minutes.

"In the second half when we were under the pump and Shane Rigney gets that goal and it just gives us a huge lift because they respond to the score, the noise fills the stadium, and we can feel that wave of energy behind us. They’re unbelievable and we can’t thank them enough for the support they give us.

“You only think of it when you’re trying to communicate across to lads to pick up their men, then the noise can be an issue, but to be honest, we’ve been together so long, we know each other’s game so well.

“‘You’re trying to keep lads tuned in and to communicate across, it can be hard but Tony (Gleeson) and Hughie (Hannon) have the structures in place that everyone knows what they’re doing. Everyone knows where to be.”

And when Kavanagh has the ball himself, even though he often has either of his brothers, Leigh and Alex, to aim at, his first option is usually to look for Adam Screeney.

“I mark him a lot in training, particularly in club training, so I know his movement and where he likes to go. He’s able to win any sort of ball, and if he doesn’t, he makes life very hard for the defender to clear, all the forwards are very good at that. And then if he does get a score, it lifts the crowd that little bit more,” Brecon added, regarding his renowned county and club colleague.