"I loved going to training, I loved the matches, I loved the competitiveness of it."
Jack Kavanagh enjoyed a glittering Carlow career Photo: ©INPHO/Tom Maher
Jack Kavanagh from St Mullins, who announced his retirement from intercounty hurling recently, made 142 appearances for the Carlow senior hurlers where he scored 1-98 in 51 championship, 67 NHL and 24 Walsh Cup games. He also has the distinction of being part of a very good Carlow minor hurling team that beat Wexford and Offaly to qualify for the 2006 Leinster final. Kilkenny were too good for them in Croke Park but it was as far as any other Carlow minor hurling team had ever gone. Since then, Jack has featured in two Christy Ring Cup and two Joe McDonagh Cup finals in Croke Park and has never been on the losing side.
He is 36 years of age now. His memory of the game goes back over 25 years where his father, Martin, introduced older brother, Chris and himself, to the hurling field.
It goes back to an under 10 team with St Mullins. My father used bring me and Chris, to every blitz, every training session. Everything that was going on, he was bringing us. Probably even back to under 8s,” recalls Jack.
The brothers quickly understood that winning was important. The tone was set for club rivalries which endures to this very day.
“I think we beat Naomh Bríd in an under 12 final and then we won two under 14s as well. The second one we won, we beat Mount Leinster Rangers in Dr Cullen Park. They had beaten us by 27 points in a league game so it was a big upset.
“Pat 'Mosey' Murphy was over us and my uncle, Declan, was a selector. That win against Rangers was huge. We had a game plan. I remember they put me in full-forward and I got two goals early. It set the tempo for the game and then they moved me back out to midfield. I suppose I wasn’t expected to start full-forward. Then everything happened and it clicked. We managed to beat them in that final,” recalled the Carlow’s multiple winner at Croke Park.
“From that early age, we found out what winning meant something and you could see it through the Pat Moseys and the Declan Kavanaghs who had had success at senior. It nearly meant more to them than it did to us.”
St Mullins success at underage doesn’t reflect itself at senior level. St Mullins have won 29 finals and lost 23. The number of minor and under 20/21 successes doesn’t even come close to what the seniors have. Yet the club have something special.
In the late 2000s, current senior player, John Doran, Jack and Chris Kavanagh were part of a very good St Mullins underage team but there would be major disappointment for a side who, it was hoped, could go all the way in Carlow.
“We should have won a county final but we were beaten over in Kildavin by Naomh Bríd. Bagenalstown were nailed on to make a county final but Myshall (Naomh Eoin) beat Bagenalstown. I never won a minor. I won 12, 14s and 16s but the minor got away from us. I always look back at that one as one we left behind us. You remember more the one you don’t win than the one you do win.”
Jack featured with a St Mullins side who did qualify for a county under 21 final but a very good Erins Own were too good for them on the day.
“Bagenalstown had an unbelievable underage set-up at the time where they came out on top at all underage levels,” notes Jack.
“We hurled them in a number of under 16 finals but they had serious underage teams. At underage we don’t have the same success as we do at senior level but we get two or three lads every year which strengthens the special depth with that senior team which we have at the minute. We are in such a lucky position that we have 3-4 lads the seniors can take every year.”
Chris and Jack were on Carlow underage Tony Forristal Cup teams. They played up through the levels.
He made his senior debut under Eoin Garvey who had led Carlow to a 2006 Christy Ring Cup final where they shipped a heavy defeat to Antrim. Two years later, Jack was on the panel which won a gripping final against Westmeath in Tullamore.
“It was something that would have been an ambition to break in to the Carlow senior team. In 2007, I was only barely 18 at the time. There were nerves of course as I was going on to a team that was full of class such as Robbie Foley, Des Murphy, Eddie Coady, Shane Kavanagh. All those lads were household names. I was nervous but after a couple of years, you settle into it.
“You kind of go from being a fringe player, a substitute to playing. At that time, I was playing midfield so you are in the heart and soul of every game. I was nervous but it was not long before I found my feet. I loved going to training, I loved the matches, I loved the competitiveness of it. I continued that throughout my career,” agreed Kavanagh.
The following year’s Ring final was played in Croke Park. It was a bitter-sweet moment for the young St Mullins hurler. With time ticking away, he was called from the bench but as he warmed up the final whistle went. The teenager was settling in well. Particularly as the players paraded the cup around the county.
“We celebrated well. I think we stayed in the Seven Oaks that night. Myself and Mark Ryan .stayed together. Pat Treacy was the physio. The next day there was a bus which brought us all round the county to every parish and every pub. It was tough going let me tell you. I wasn’t used to the drinking,” he laughs.
The next time Carlow played a Christy Ring Cup final in Croke Park, Jack was a starter when they beat Antrim by 5-23 to 4-15. That was in 2017. The following season, the Joe McDonagh Cup was annexed. A 2-26 to 1-24 victory over Westmeath.
“The first Christy Ring with Colm Bonnar (2017) was huge for us. We were up against a fancied Antrim team and that day James Doyle scored a hat-trick of goals. In the first Joe McDonagh against Westmeath we probably hurled as well as we ever did. We were just exceptional. The hurling and the performance stood out. The second one we won stands out as well. Mouse (Marty Kavanagh his brother) missed that one so it was nice to win in Croke Park with him.
The last Joe McDonagh Cup success nearly eluded from Jack. He missed the league campaign. He figured his career was over. That was until he got a phone call.
“Before that, I said that I wasn’t wanted. Mouse was in but then the call came. I was more than happy to come in. It worked well. I was 34 at the time and I probably needed that break which Tom Mullally (Carlow manager) gave me. I didn’t realise it. The fire was still in my belly.
“That Joe McDonagh Cup final in 2023 was a crazy game. We hurled so well in the first half. Then it went down to the wire. We went a point down and then Chris (Nolan) got the point to win it with almost the last puck of the ball. They had a chance which went wide. Every kind of emotion you could imagine on the biggest stage of all. I will take that one to the grave with me. It was the last medal I won with Carlow and I know it is very special.”
Colm Bonnar was the manager in 2017 and 2018. He was succeeded by Tom Mullally who led the team into Division 1B and there was the Joe McDonagh Cup final win. Is it fair to compare the two? Jack doesn’t mind doing so.
“Both of them are very different in their own right. I don’t know. Bonnar was more easy going, more relaxed. He had his own successful hurling career.
Tom was more serious, very straight and didn’t pull any punches. He probably had more of his success off the field managing teams,” points out Kavanagh.
“There are similarities but they are two very different characters, different individuals but I couldn’t say a bad work about either of them. I absolutely loved hurling under both of them. Both of them have done great things for Carlow and Mullally is continuing to do it to this day.”
Jack also played under other Carlow senior managers.
“Eoin Garvey, Jim Greene, John Meyler, Pat English, the Bonnar, Tom Mullally. I would have enjoyed working under them all. You would get on better with some more than others but I wasn’t there to get on with managers. I was there to play hurling for Carlow,” said a straight-talking Jack Kavanagh who brought that honesty and steel into the club set-up.
He won his first senior county title in 2010 where they beat their old rivals, Mount Leinster Rangers in the final. It was a big pay-back for losing to the Borris side in 2006 and 2007.
“Against Rangers in 2006 we were five points up with fifteen minutes to go and they scored the last eight points to win by three. I had just come on to the panel and got two goals in the semi-final. A goal early in the second half and a goal in the first half. The supply of balls then dried up coming in,” he recalled.
Kavanagh and Seamus Murphy had been linking up well but the game just turned. Rangers beat them in 2008 too. That 2010 win was special for Kavanagh but for St Mullins it was one that was badly needed.
“We hadn’t won one since 2002. A lot of work went into the club to try and get the cup back to St Mullins. We had lost in 2006, we lost 2007 and were very poor in 2008 and 2009. In 2010 we got to a county final against a very fancied Mount Leinster Rangers side. No matter what, we were going to bring the cup home. From the word go, the minute the ball was thrown in, it came to Patrick Walsh. With a flick of a wrist he sent the ball over the bar and that set the tone for the day. Paudie Kehoe got a goal midway through the first half. At the end we were four points up and Rangers had a 65. We knew wherever the ball went were going to run all over the place to celebrate. I’ll never forget it. When the whistle went I jumped into James Murphy’s arms. There is a great mixture of James and myself. He is holding me up in the air and my father is coming in behind us. They are memories which you look back in. That one in 2010 will always be a little bit sweeter.”
From 2011, Rangers went on to win a three-in-a-row inflicting a heavy 1-20 to 0-11 defeat on St Mullins in 2013. Humiliated. St Mullins vowed to put that right but it was Naomh Eoin they met in the 2014 decider. Kavanagh remembers it well. Conditions were awful.
It is probably a game we should never have won. Myshall (Naomh Eoin) were by far the better team. It was the worst conditions I ever hurled in. Myshall came out in the second half playing with a gale-force wind. They got a point to go seven points to three ahead. We won the game 0-9 to 0-7,” he said.
There was drama at the end. Naomh Eoin were awarded a 20-metre free. “John Michael Nolan took it. The ball skidded off somebody’s hurl. John Doran got a flick on it. It was going into the net. I suppose when it is your day, it is your day. It was nice to get that one after the disappointment of 2013. We were delighted to come out of Dr Cullen and go down to the parish with the cup.”
St Mullins put the 2013 loss to Rangers behind them when the beat their Borris rivals and retained the title in 2015. The following year, Jack was captain when they won the three-in-a-row.
“It was very special. I didn’t really need to be a captain but it was nice to be the captain for once. Everyone contributed. It was a huge thing to do after Rangers had done it. We won that final fairly convincingly against Rangers and it was really nice to walk up the steps. Lifting the cup, it was a really proud moment for me, for my family.” Further county titles came St Mullins way in 2022 and 2024 with Kavanagh picking up his seventh medal last season.
This year he got a phone call from Tom Mullally. He told the Carlow manager, he felt it was time to walk away. It was a huge call for the St Mullins man.
“It is always easy to be thinking about it but it is hard to make it official,” he says. Jack had discussed retirement with Avril, his fiancée.
“I explained to him the time had come. When I hung up the phone I was unsure whether I had done the right thing or not. It is something I think about every day. Even talking to you, it is making it that bit more official,” he says.
It is the end of January. A new intercounty league season. Getting over the first game and not being in Tullamore helped draw a line under his decision.
“It is a tough one. When you make a decision there is no coming back. I am 36 now and when it comes around I will be 37. I think I could play this year. A few niggles but the body is pretty good. I just felt it was time to step aside.
The middle of the Kavanagh brothers has never shirked a tackle. When he makes a decision to go for a ball, there is no holding back. So it was with his decision to retire. He pulled hard.
“Even now I miss it fiercely. It is something I have done for so long. I miss it all. It is strange. I think I will get used to it but I haven’t got used to it yet. It is nice to have time to spend with loved ones. We are planning on building a house now. We are planning a wedding. I am still training away down here. It will become the norm but I am missing it fiercely. I had an idea walking off after the county final last year. I had an idea in the stand sitting up in Antrim last year when we got relegated (from the Leinster championship). I shed a few tears because I had an idea that I wouldn’t be in a dressing room with the Carlow players ever again.”
There was a recent article in a national newspaper where a journalist wrote about the relationship he had with his brothers. The writer acknowledged there were times he wouldn’t pass the ball to a sibling player. Jack says this would never be the case with him or any of his brothers.
“Me, Chris and Mouse are very close. There wouldn’t be a day go by when, on our own Whats Ap group, we would not be talking. We are brothers but we are also best friends. There would be no hard feelings. We would be pushing ourselves on in every shape of life.”
In a long and hugely successful career Jack probably picked up more red cards than he should have. He says he never held a grudge.
“It does happen. You try and control it as best you can. Some are better than others at doing it. Sometimes you do something and you look back wondering what was I at? In a moment you lose that bit of control. I have often been on the receiving end of it and have dished it out too. That is where it stays. It never comes off the field with me. That is the way it should be.
“Our biggest rivalries over recent years have been St Mullins and Rangers. Mouse and me went to school in Borris and some of those would be our best friends. We put our friendship aside for 60 minutes. We do what we have to do. We pull, we kick, we drag. We do whatever it takes to win but after the game we shake hands and go drink pints together. That is the way it always has been with us.”
