Eoin Lavers battles back from a serious injury to lead Dohenys' bid for SAFC glory

THE Páirc will be heaving this Saturday for the eagerly anticipated Bon Secours Hospital SAFC final between Carbery rivals Dohenys and Newcestown.

There are many motivational factors including bragging rights and most importantly promotion to the top flight of Cork football for the 2024 season. From a Dohenys perspective, reaching a county final has been a long time coming, not since 2006 have they reached a decider when they lost to Nemo Rangers in the SFC final. The town of Dunmanway, the home of Sam Maguire, is awash with green and white.

The buzz is at an all time high and team captain Eoin Lavers, who played in a number of relegation play-off matches in the top tier until Dohenys lost their status at the end of 2019 due to the restructuring of the grades, is excited for Saturday’s showdown (5pm throw in) against the team from over the road in the shape of Newcestown.

“This is uncharted territory for all of us to be fair,” says Lavers.

“There is great excitement around the town in the build up to this one. It has given everyone a huge lift and everyone I have been talking to seems to be going up to the game. You saw yourself driving through, nearly every house has a green and white flag up so it’s brilliant. For a club like ourselves to be back in a county final is unreal. When I started out playing with the first team, we were more or less fighting to stay up every season. While it was disappointing to drop down at the end of 2019, it has given us a chance to reset.” 

And pressing the reset button they most certainly have done. Since they dropped down to the senior A grade, it has been slow but steady progress. The first season was tough, picking up two points from the three championship group stage games as Dohenys only avoided a relegation play-off on scoring difference. But, with such a young team, it was always going to take time, and fruits of the labour yielded the business end of the championship in the last two seasons, semi-final in 2021 and quarter-final last campaign until this year's big breakthrough.

“We have a seriously young team, it’s actually hard to believe. I am only 27 years of age and I am one of the most experienced players in the squad so we knew when we dropped down there would have to be an element of patience. Since 2020, the graph has been going up. The main goal at the start of this season was to get promoted out of the Division 3 league, we achieved that and we won the league final against Knocknagree.

“Then the focus was on the championship and we just took it game by game. The first match was huge against the neighbours (Newcestown). That one-point win gave us huge confidence going forward. We then won against Bishopstown and Ilen Rovers in the remaining group games. We performed so well in the last four against Knocknagree, we actually had a slow start, but once we got going on the big wide open pitch of Páirc Uí Chaoimh we were outstanding.” 

It shows the strength in depth of the Dohenys squad when Lavers was actually absent for most of the championship games this year. He played 46 minutes of the first group match and didn’t appear until the semi-final when he came on after 38 minutes. A serious injury that he initially thought would have ended his 2023 campaign.

“I won’t go into too much detail. At first I felt playing GAA was over for a while. I could have easily put my hand up after the opening group match and say that’s me done for the season. I put my head down, and got the required treatment. I would like to thank a lot of people, they know who they are and hopefully it will be worth coming back now.” 

Dohenys haven’t won an adult county title since 1995 when they lifted the IFC crown, can they end that this weekend by beating their divisional rivals? 

“We were underdogs in 1995 against Kilmurry and we will be underdogs again in this final against a very good Newcestown side so hopefully it will be the same outcome.”