Shaken out of complacency

All-Ireland SFC Qualifiers, round four/Laois v Tyrone: Capturing the current mood of the Tyrone footballers involves a bit of a detour. Seán Cavanagh has been their driving force at midfield throughout the highs and the one low of their championship and should offer a fair assessment. He is traced to the family homestead in Moy.

"Don't forget to ask for Seán junior and not Seán senior," says Teddy Cavanagh. "Seán senior is the brother."

The Cavanagh father mentions another son Colm who is also playing with the Tyrone minors this weekend and then leads the trail to Cavanagh & Kelly accountants, five minutes up the road in Dungannon. In goes the request: "Looking for Seán junior . . . in connection with football. The game against Laois on Sunday."

Finally Seán Cavanagh junior, the Tyrone midfielder, assesses the mood.

"Sure, after the Donegal game we were down in the dumps for a short while. But I think we all knew within ourselves that we could come back. We had to dig deep again though, because we've had our setbacks already this year. Especially with Cormac McAnallen.

"But we are still very together. Even though it was disappointment, I think we might be coming back even stronger."

Cavanagh has already made a habit of coming back stronger. On his championship debut in 2002 he scored the goal that gave Tyrone another day out against Armagh in the Ulster championship. They lost the replay and he watched Armagh go on to win the All-Ireland.

A year on he was fully installed in the Tyrone midfield. After an unforgettable summer he had an All-Ireland medal, and All Star, and was named young player of the year. Still, the 21-year-old was determined to come back stronger in 2004.

When he scored four trophy points the first day out against Derry it seemed he and Tyrone would be unstoppable. But they were clearly shaken by Fermanagh the next day out and then it all went wrong against Donegal.

"Against Donegal we were a little complacent. It doesn't matter how many times you tell yourself you're not. Especially with the run we were on, bar one or two games in the league. We thought maybe we could stroll through the Ulster championship and get to Croke Park for the Armagh match, which of course everyone was talking about. But Donegal also had their homework done on us. So definitely any invincibility we might have felt disappeared that day. I think it has got us back to the level of hunger and fight that we had last year."

Cavanagh has tidied up other areas of his life since the Donegal defeat. He completed his accountancy exams at Jordanstown just before the first qualifier match against Down, and passed them with first-class honours. The summer job at his uncle's business takes his mind off football when it needs to.

But when football duty calls Cavanagh is still the complete player. Against Galway in Croke Park two weeks ago it was his other business as usual. He contributed three points, each at the right moment, and made a couple of those now trademark runs towards the oppositions' goalmouth.

And in a way he feels avoiding Armagh in the Ulster final might yet have provided the better route to their All-Ireland defence: "You'd have to look at it that way. At this stage we have the few extra men back, such as Peter Canavan, and maybe losing to Donegal was a blessing in disguise.

"I think the Galway and Down matches proved that, and yeah, if we do get to play Armagh later in the year I think we will be better prepared for them. But of course we're still taking one game at a time.

"But it was tough to take the Donegal loss, even on a personal level. But then coming through the qualifiers helps remove that complacency, because you know you don't get another chance. It's back to the do-or-die mentality, which I know we had all of last year.

"So we're all looking forward to all the challenges that lie ahead, and that starts tomorrow. I think we can still look forward to a long summer of football."

Right now the team that are standing in their way are Laois, whose own confidence was shattered just a week ago with the Leinster final loss to Westmeath, and who between injury and whatever else haven't been given much of a chance against Tyrone.

Cavanagh isn't falling for it.

"Of course we've seen the reports, that they're missing players and there might be a bit of disruption. But I know after the Donegal game I would have come out the next day and played again if I got the chance. I was just dying to get back, and prove the critics wrong.

"I'm sure Laois will be coming out to do the same on Sunday. And it's a dangerous thing for us when we're labelled such strong favourites. I would still rate Laois as one of the top five or six teams in the country so it's certainly going to be a difficult match for us. "It is tough to get ready in the seven days that they've had. But they're still out to prove something, and we have to make sure we don't feel the backlash."

So that's the current mood of the Tyrone footballers. It sounds good, very good. Look out Croke Park.