What's the story with Cavan?

[Zulu]

Lads, both Tipp and Waterford have now gone to Cavan in the last few years and beaten them, yet Cavan is a football county with a great tradition and while any county can go through slumps I cannot understand why Cavan are stuck in this mire. Even now they have some excellent players but they are repeatedly disappointing in both league and championship. Is there a reason for this, can any of teh Cavan lads give us an insight into why things are so bad there?

[BallyhaiseMan]

No Game Plan
No System of Play
Poor coaching(throughout the county at all levels)
no commitment from some players(players drinking and acting the bollox)

Now if all these things were corrected,we still wouldnt be winning all irelands,
but we could at least get up to the levels of Fermanagh/Down/Donegal.

[Zulu]

But why is the coaching so poor BM, the Ulster council is very progressive and many of your neighbouring county's are leading the way in this respect so your coaches should be fairly good. Is there not a CB development plan for football within the county and if not why not, where are the clubs in all this?

[Canalman]

From what I hear (from a mate from Mullagh) there is a ferocoius "boy racer"/hard drinking culture amongst the young lads in Cavan, which allied to  the smallish population and geographical size of the County is not helpful.
Have said this in the past, Cavan is imo the most passionate about Gaelic Football county in the country bar no other. Have yet to meet someone from Cavan with no interest in football. Roscommon would be a close 2nd.

[INDIANA]

I have friends up there and the gaelic football talent is second to none. Unfortunately the vast majority of talented players up there are chronic pissheads by 21/22 thus rendering their chances redundnat at county level.

[under the bar]

Unfortunately the vast majority of talented players up there are chronic pissheads by 21/22 thus rendering their chances redundnat at county level

It didn't stop Armagh making a mediocre impact....

[neilthemac]

well, Tommy Carr might the first in a long line of problems

[BallyhaiseMan]

we are 10-15 years behind the likes of Tyrone when it comes to underage coaching and development,

heres a damning quote from Cavan poster RednBlack about the state and lack of impetus in coaching in Cavan compared to Tyrone.

"Recently the Ulster Coaching Conference was on in Cookstown and 463 coaches from all over Ulster attended. Cavan had 14 coaches register and pay and on the day 6 turned up. Tyrone - well 93 coaches attended"

As TYP said St Pats Cavan have been the whipping boys of the McRory for the last 10 years nearly.

we have had success with Virginia winning 2 All Ireland Vocationals,but other than that success has been extinct at underage level.

we always seem to run Tyrone and Derry to a few points at Minor Level,but just can never seem to beat them (in years when they go on and win all irelands)

Theres talent here like Ronan Flanagan/Lyng/Johnston/Cullivan/Pierson and co, not enough to win all Irelands,but enough to certainly be alot better.

[boojangles]

I have friends up there and the gaelic football talent is second to none. Unfortunately the vast majority of talented players up there are chronic pissheads by 21/22 thus rendering their chances redundnat at county level.

Would have to agree with ya there.Social life has been the killing of alot of top class players in Cavan,and the rot doesnt look like stopping.

[cavanmaniac]

Max will probably be able to offer a fuller explanation as he's from Derry and would know more than the rest of us about these things  but the other lads have made a fair crack at it in their posts.

There's a losing culture and rank lack of ambition and generally just a hell of a lot of things wrong in Cavan. Ironically, a lack of players is the least of our problems, it's coaching them well, holding on to them, instilling commitment in them and a winning mentality at underage, that's where the bulk of the problems are. McHugh showed in '95 that when someone with vision is in charge that the players look up to and respect, the rising tide lifts all boats and it's very surprising how quickly Cavan can go from also-rans to respectability in a relatively short space of time. In 1994 we hadn't won a championship game in almost a decade, but by the time McHugh left three years later we had contested two Ulster finals and won one to reach an All-Ireland semi where we weren't a million miles away, won an Ulster U21 and reached an All-Ireland final, and were in Division 1 of the league if memory serves.

[Hardy]

Well send for McHugh then.

[cornafean]

Of the 32 counties, Cavan are ranked 26th in terms of population.
The following are the full list as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_counties_by_population


Rank    County    Population    Density (/ km²)
1    Dublin    1,186,159    1219.1
2    Antrim    616,384    216.7
3    Cork            480,909    60.1
4    Down    410,487    167.7
5    Galway    231,035    34.0
6    Derry    211,669    102.1
7    Kildare    186,075    96.8
8    Limerick    183,863    65.3
9    Tyrone    158,460    50.2
10    Tipperary    149,131    32.6
11    Donegal    137,575    28.4
12    Meath    134,005    57.2
13    Kerry    132,527    27.9
14    Armagh    126,803    101.1
15    Mayo    117,446    21.0
16    Wexford    116,596    49.6
17    Wicklow    114,676    56.7
18    Clare            103,277    32.8
19    Louth    101,821    124.2
20    Waterford    101,546    55.3
21    Kilkenny    80,339    39.0
22    Westmeath71,858    39.1
23    Offaly    63,663    31.8
24    Laois      58,774    34.2
25    Sligo            58,200    31.7
26    Cavan    56,546    29.3
27    Fermanagh   54,033    32.0
28    Roscommon53,744    21.1
29    Monaghan    52,593    40.6
30    Carlow    45,845    51.2
31    Longford    31,068    28.5
32    Leitrim    25,799    16.2

With a few exceptions, there seems to be a general correlation between a county's ranking in terms of football success and its ranking in terms of population. This is especially so if you take account of counties where a significant part of the population isn't interested in football, due to either the dominance of hurling or for cultural/religious reasons.

It doesn't seem to matter much in the case of counties in the top half of the table (Kerry are 13th) but the counties in the bottom half are generally the same counties that spend most of the time in Division 3 or 4. Cavan are not much different to their peers in Offaly, Roscommon, Leitrim or Fermanagh. They have generally the same strengths and weaknesses as any of these counties. Every so often they will have a decent side capable of putting it up to the big boys, but a lot of the time they simply won't have the strength in depth to sustain any sort of serious challenge at the higher levels, against counties with much bigger resources.

In Cavan's case, the fact that they were dominating Ulster 60 or 70 years ago does not change this.

[mylestheslasher]

What you outline may be a contributory factor but there are too many contradictions, the biggest being Kilkenny at 21 and them being a total dominant force in the history of hurling. Laois are very similar to Cavan in population yet through some great underage work they are a solid 2nd tier team and indeed can match anyone on their day. Also, some places like Dublin & Antrim, have a very large population but might not have a very large GAA playing population. I'd wager that proper underage structures will far outweigh the importance of population.

[whiskeysteve]

I think you may be onto something.

Tipperary have over twice the population of Cavan, ergo they are twice as good at football.

God knows where this leaves Mickey Moran and John Morrison. Maybe John will engage in a hair brained scheme of population boosting. Along with the brazil nuts, dark rooms and skips

[Sonny Joe]

The largest population base in County Derry is Derry City, with an average population of 90,000. The city does not provide the ssenior football panel with one playets. The city also does not have a club that plays senior football. To make a comparsion, can you imagine either Dublin City or Cork City not providing players to the county senior team.