When Sean Cavanagh's inter-county football career ended in August with a heavy All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Dublin, Sean Cavanagh thought his days playing in Croke Park were done.
Now, Cavanagh is just a single game away from once again playing on Jones Road. On Sunday, his club Moy defeat Down's Rostrevor to win the Ulster Intermediate Championship. Cavanagh contributed four points in a 0-9 to 0-8 victory.
"I thought my Croke Park days were over when I walked off after 55 minutes of the semi-final this year. If I walk back with the club it would really be the icing on the cake in terms of my career," Cavanagh told RTÉ.
The three-time All-Ireland winner had been informed by many that the transition from the highs inter-county football to just being a club player would not be easy. Right now, he's not finding it particularly difficult - "I'm still living the dream and to be honest it's probably a bigger dream."
This is as sweet as anything I've ever won. It's a different sort of winning. Okay, there might not have been 82,000 there, like at Croke Park, but it's every bit as sweet at the final whistle to have my now three kids come over to me.
In the All-Ireland semi-final, scheduled for January 21st, Moy will face Kerry's An Ghaeltacht. Cavanagh will face an old foe in Marc Ó Sé.
That game, if he attends it, is likely to be just the second time Cavanagh's young son sees him play - Sunday was the first.
It was young Sean's first football game. No matter what happens I'll always be able to tell him that the first day he saw Gaelic football played, he saw his club win an Ulster club championship.
It's been 35 years since we won any Championship in the club. My father played at full-back in the team and he's been talking about it ever since! My father, who won in 1982, uncles who are in their 70s and 80s. A really sweet achievement and one that I don't think has sunk in yet.
I don't have a lot of pictures around the house, if any at all, but that one will top them all.
Picture credit: Michael Cullen / SPORTSFILE
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