OF ALL THE ‘new’ faces drafted in by Rory Gallagher in the midwinter, Rory Kavanagh’s was easily the most high profile.
A year after he announced his retirement, walking away following the 2014 All-Ireland final loss to Kerry, Kavanagh did a u-turn.
He’d played 132 times for Donegal and made 49 Championship appearances, but the St Eunan’s man – who wrote an autobiography, ‘Winning’, in 2015 – still felt a sense of the unfinished.
Gallagher was clear that he wanted the midfielder back. He visited the player at his home in The Maples and found that Kavanagh didn’t need his arm bent too much.
“It didn’t take much from myself to be honest,” Gallagher says of his initial approaches to the player.
[adrotate group=”43″]“The boys had a huge influence on it as well. I think the biggest part was that he missed it. He felt and knew that he was still good enough to be there.”
If he was the most high-profile inclusion in the squad for 2016 – a panel that included 12 players who’d never lined out at senior level before – Kavanagh has managed to shun the limelight since.
The Scoil Colmcille schoolteacher has done no media interviews since agreeing to go back.
[adrotate group=”53″]In the continuing absence of Neil Gallagher from the engine room, Kavanagh will become all the more important and will be looked to this evening in Breffni Park, where Donegal face Monaghan in the Ulster SFC semi-final.
“He’s still one of the top 26 footballers in Donegal,” his manager says.
“No question. We wanted him back. At this time, he’s in the top 15 players in the county. We’re delighted to have him back. He’s an awful lot to contribute to us.
“The great thing about Rory is that once he made the decision to come back there was no easing off. He wanted to get stuck in right away. He wanted training and game time under his belt. He didn’t want to be playing catch up so we had him back in as early as possible.
“He’s in the best physical condition he can be as he was into it pretty quickly. But that’s Rory. We’re looking forward to a big summer from him and we’re looking forward to a big game from him against Monaghan.”
Kavanagh made his 50th Championship appearance two weeks ago when Donegal defeated Fermanagh 2-12 to 0-11 in Ballybofey, but he was withdrawn after just 12 minutes having been booked.
Kavanagh was re-introduced again in the second half and Gallagher has moved to explain the replacement of Kavanagh and Leo McLoone, his replacement, who was also booked.
Gallagher says: “We just felt, all things being equal, we didn’t want to take the risk of going a man down.
“Leo came on and also picked up one. At that stage it was no big deal and we let him go. Obviously we lost Neil (McGee) so at that stage we didn’t want to go down to 13 or it would really have been an uphill battle.
[adrotate group=”74″]“Even taking Rory off we knew we’d probably be putting him back in with the 10 or 15 minutes to go. That’s the way it panned out. It’s just something you have to weigh up on the day.
“You have to see how the game is going and how the referee is reffing. Every day is different. Someone could get a yellow the next day after five minutes but that doesn’t mean we’ll take them off. Last Sunday it just wasn’t worth the risk.”
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