Andrews to relieve upset in Cavan

Cavan's County Board last night confirmed the appointment of Val Andrews as manager of the county football team. The Dubliner, who led IT Tralee to the last two Sigerson Cup titles, will have the assistance of his trainer in Tralee, former international athlete Pat Flanagan, in his new position.

Andrews had been the choice of the sub-committee established to find a successor for Liam Austin, who resigned two weeks ago. His ratification by last night's executive and county committee meetings had been expected.

He is an interesting choice for the position, even if few will envy him the arduous task ahead in rehabilitating a Cavan team which has freefallen from eminence to crisis in one smooth tumble.

Recent All-Ireland successes have been achieved with a considerable input from players who have already earned their spurs at Sigerson level. This year will see a couple of the better-known third-level coaches trying their hand.

Cavan's first championship outing will be against Derry, who are jointly managed by Andrews' rival from last year's Sigerson final, Adrian McGuckin, whose UU Jordanstown team were narrowly beaten by Tralee in the final.

The impulse towards inter-county management was inevitable. "I sat in the stand at Croke Park in September and realised that this is really what it's all about," Andrews says. He wasn't in a position to continue managing IT Tralee because of family commitments, but is now anxious to renew his involvement with the game.

"From September to January I couldn't do anything and Vinny O'Shea and Alan Ringland had taken over at the Institute. Now that I'm free again, I couldn't go back and start hanging around, interfering. It was better to move on and take up new challenges."

Given the demanding logistics of the journey between Tralee and Cavan - a round-trip of approximately 450 miles - Andrews made it clear that Flanagan's appointment was part of the deal. "There will be two of us involved and two of us sharing the journey. But I couldn't do it without the support of my family," he says.

Flanagan is a colleague of Andrews at IT Tralee: the former lectures in physiology, the latter in management. "Pat's input to the Sigersons was huge and my relationship with him is excellent. We're very much a package."

Andrews background was with Ballymun Kickhams in Dublin - "I was a very average club player," he says - but an injury halted his playing career in 1990 when he was 31. In the void created by his retirement, he became involved on the coaching side, assisting Anto McCaul in the winning of two Dublin under-21 championships.

He then took over the minor side, which featured current Dublin seniors Paddy Christie and Ian Robertson, and led them to a county league title.

Five years ago, Andrews moved to Tralee. "I really didn't think I'd be involved down here," he says. "There's All-Ireland medals hanging on the trees in Kerry, but I got involved with John Mitchels and we won a Division Three title. Which mightn't seem much but they all tried their hardest and got absolutely everything out of themselves."

His taste for adventurous training methods is such that he feels he can bring something new to the intercounty scene. He stresses the importance of shorter, varied regimes - which explains the regularity with which Tralee trained, sometimes seven days a week.

Tralee's success was phenomenal. Promoted to the first division in 1995, the college - then an RTC - played their first Sigerson match only three years ago and beat Maynooth, before falling to eventual winners UCD. Since then, the college is unbeaten in Sigerson.

Andrews believes that his input benefited from the quality of players who passed through the Institute. "My term coincided with the emergence of lots of key players - Barry O'Shea, William Kirby, Jimmy McGuinness, John Casey, Michael Donnellan - and also the great input of Seamus Moyhnihan."

The Waterford senior hurling team, who returned from a seven-day holiday in Gran Canaria on Sunday, are back in competitive action next weekend when they play the holders, Kilkenny, in the AIB tournament final at Dungarvan on Sunday.

They will be without All Star, Tony Browne and forwards Sean Daly and Michael Molumphy.