If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. And then try another 30 times.

Unless you play for the likes of Crossmaglen Rangers, Dr. Crokes, Ballyhale Shamrocks or other club teams renowned for tasting success on a repeated basis, winning a trophy can be a rare enough occurrence for a club GAA player and most will be lucky enough to finish their senior club careers with two or three medals to their name. Aidan Fitzpatrick from the Cootehill Celtic club in Cavan had gone a full three decades without winning the Cavan senior hurling medal he badly coveted, but he brought that barren run to an end at the weekend when captaining his club to victory over Ballymachugh after a replay on Sunday at Breffni Park. According to our information, Aidan is 47 years young and made his debut 31 seasons ago as a 16-year old and to put his achievement in some sort of context, only one member of the victorious Cootehill panel was born when Aidan first togged out at senior level. Who said hurling was a young man’s game? If they haven’t already started calling Aidan the Ryan Giggs of Cavan hurling they really should do now… entirely in relation to his on-field exploits, of course. Hat-tip to Dean Arrowsmith and Lonan McKenna for their help with this one