[2][3] He took up playing hockey in primary school[2] and attended Nagle Catholic College in Geraldton.

[7] Kavanagh is a member of the Australia men's national field hockey team.

[12] He was a member of the 2009 Hockey Champions Trophy winning team, playing in the gold medal match against Germany that Australia won by a score of 5–3.

The Cup featured teams from Pakistan, Malaysia, India, South Korea, Britain and New Zealand.

[17] In December 2011, he was named as one of twenty-eight players to be on the 2012 Summer Olympics Australian men's national training squad.

[18][19][20] In February during the training camp, he played in a four nations test series with the teams being the Kookaburras, Australia A Squad, the Netherlands and Argentina.