Official Cavan GAA Thread

[full moon]

Theres been peen plenty of talk of good young players in cavan for the last ten years. I think people are taking for granted that our underage success will continue onto senior level.

Alot changes in a short time. These players can fluctuate, move away or more likely not care enough. Its naive to think we have a 5 year plan in place and all will be well. A couple more hammerings like that, and we all know players will not stick around.

On another note, is there something in the water that we have no football players from the age of 24 onwards? That needs to be sorted, plenty of names from other posters there should be playing, and the very best young players. Also the amount of players coming in and out the panel, being dropped from the panel without reason, or leaving themselves, needs to stop.

There is no continuity, some players have trained all year and been dropped during championship time for little reason. With other players drafted in who havent trained. Its no wonder there is a large contingent of players who are unavailable.

We could name a team of players playing club football in Cavan who would beat yesterdays side, none of whom are on the county panel.

I dont know the situation on some of these players playing IC, its hard to keep track of it all at this stage but:

D. Sheridan
M Cahill ( has a broken jaw i think)
T Crowe?
Alan Clarke
Gaynor
Nesty
Fannin
Cullivan
Ray Galligan ( a free taker badly needed)
Sean McCormick
McCutcheon ( i thought he was on the panel?)

Plenty of experience and strength there.  Can we afford to just ignore so many of these players.

[mylestheslasher]

I suppose in hylands defence we don't know whether a lot of these lads would or could give the level of commitment required or whether they gave it last year or not. For example lyng is in mayo working, was he going to go home 3 times a week to train?

[tommysmith]

I suppose in hylands defence we don't know whether a lot of these lads would or could give the level of commitment required or whether they gave it last year or not. For example lyng is in mayo working, was he going to go home 3 times a week to train?

It's hard to know whats really going on, if hyland is to continue with this 5 year plan it will probably mean more u-21 coming in next year and more experienced lads been dropped from the panel.

[mylestheslasher]

Theres been peen plenty of talk of good young players in cavan for the last ten years. I think people are taking for granted that our underage success will continue onto senior level.

Alot changes in a short time. These players can fluctuate, move away or more likely not care enough. Its naive to think we have a 5 year plan in place and all will be well. A couple more hammerings like that, and we all know players will not stick around.

On another note, is there something in the water that we have no football players from the age of 24 onwards? That needs to be sorted, plenty of names from other posters there should be playing, and the very best young players. Also the amount of players coming in and out the panel, being dropped from the panel without reason, or leaving themselves, needs to stop.

There is no continuity, some players have trained all year and been dropped during championship time for little reason. With other players drafted in who havent trained. Its no wonder there is a large contingent of players who are unavailable.

We could name a team of players playing club football in Cavan who would beat yesterdays side, none of whom are on the county panel.

I dont know the situation on some of these players playing IC, its hard to keep track of it all at this stage but:

D. Sheridan
M Cahill ( has a broken jaw i think)
T Crowe?
Alan Clarke
Gaynor
Nesty
Fannin
Cullivan
Ray Galligan ( a free taker badly needed)
Sean McCormick
McCutcheon ( i thought he was on the panel?)

Plenty of experience and strength there.  Can we afford to just ignore so many of these players.

Cahill dropped by Andrews and broke his jaw few weeks ago.
Trevor Crowe? Won't or can't commit. To late for him now anyway
Gaynor, seems to have been written off as a head case and maybe rightly so but its a shame.
Nesty, dropped by Andrews and don't know why.
Shierdan, dropped by Andrews but for me hasn't been good enough when played before.
Ray galligan, very slow. When the ground gets fast ray gets the chop.
Mccutcheon, dropped by Andrews (or walked depending on who you ask), recalled by hyland but I think he got injuredand was only just back recently.

[rodney trotter]

The last two years have been the same before the chammpionship started. Not having a clue of what sort of team we would have for the championship. Against Donegal last year 8 players made their debut for Cavan, some had never even played in the league. The same this year with Jack Brady and Killian Clarke. Saving the u21's during the league is all well and good, but throwing them in at the deep end for the championship is a big ask. Its not helping the seniors, saving these players during the league as Cavan need whatever is available. Meath played the u21's during the league, they mightn't  have went far in leinster u21 but at least they have experiece before the championship.

[full moon]

Alan Clarke left the panel last year I think but the whole set up has changed since then.
Definitely a free taker is needed to start next year, whether thats ray galligan or nesty, he can kick them aswell I think.

When you look at the amount of players that have been dropped in recent years it really cant go on for the team to improve.  I also agree Myles that we dont know whats going on behind closed doors. Theres certainly been plenty of quality players in recent years who for whatever reason refused to join the set up.

Its a shame about Gaynor alright, definitely a great player on his day. I dont get the feeling many of the mentioned players will be returning anytime soon though, they arent wanted by management and some of them dont want to be involved.

Something has to give though. Were playing a glorified U23 side. With 4 over age players, one is the keeper, one isnt playing and another has been poor for quite a while. We will never beat a decent side without some experience.

[rodney trotter]

The reason Nesty and Dermot Sheridan aren't on the panel is the same reason Johnston was dropped. I thought that was common knowledge at this stage.

[full moon]

I'm not going to bring Johnston into this at all, but at the same time its an awful lot of experience taken from the team, in fact nearly all its experience in a short space of time.

Were no better for it, I admire Val Andrews , but alot of players seem to have been alienated in his tenure not to mention the Tommy Carr reign as well.

[BallyhaiseMan]

I forgot Alan Clarke actually,Hes the best Centre Half back in the county so he should absolutely be there.

We need to look at lads like

Tomas Reily (Killeshandra) (Myles can tell us what the deal is with him?)
Brendan Murray(Killygarry)
Donal Thomas(playing outstanding stuff for Killygarry this year)
Sean Mac(who had a stormer of a game on both Ray Galligan and Niall McKiernan last week)
Conor Madden(Gowna) (minor this year and an outstanding prospect with size and heaps of ability)
Conor Finnegan(Lacken) Another outstanding prospect with size and strength who can take a score from distance.
Cian McEnroe(Castlerahan)Minor panelist last year ik believe,a  big man with a massive left boot,whom has been scoring for fun from well outside 45 metres this year.

All lads around the 6'2 mark or over whom are good footballers. There are more out there also.
Gaelic Football is not a complicated science.
If you can get a big, athletic team and install a defensive system with a sprinkling of talented players in certain key positions,you can be competitive against nearly anyone in the country.

[rodney trotter]

Mulvanny from from Ramor is a great young player. He was part of the u21 panel this year, think he was actually minor this year aswell, but was injured against Donegal - i could be wrong. Great target man at ff. Noel Brady from Mullahoran is a very good player, he was involved with uuj this year, very good full back or can play midfield.

[mylestheslasher]

We also have to recognise that modern football requires huge levels of commitment. This very fact rules out quite a lot of guys. Anyone who works late, does a lot of travel, works on shift etc are gone straight away. This may be a large part of the reason that counties like Cavan rely on youth so much.

[Westside]

Alan Clarke is definitely another who deserves another try. We have to be careful not to fall into the old Cavan trap of yearning for the players that aren't on the panel and failed to impress when they were. But some element of physicality is required if we are to stay in Division 3 next year which will be extremely difficult. We'll be facing Meath, Monaghan, Fermanagh, Antrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Wicklow. Without considerable improvement in defence it's hard to see how we will gather enough points to stay up.

Also the reaction of players like Nesty, Mackey and Sheridan on Twitter about Sunday's game where their primary concern was for Johnston and tearing into Tom Reilly who "started de whole farce" (sic) makes me glad they were dropped. Give me lads like McDermot any day.

[rodney trotter]

I think Alan Clarke was played out of position last year in the league and then lost his place and got fed up with it. He was probaly Kingscorts best player at centre back when they won the champinship in 2010, so it was strange that he was put in as a corner back, totally different to playing centre back.

[mylestheslasher]

Alan Clarke is definitely another who deserves another try. We have to be careful not to fall into the old Cavan trap of yearning for the players that aren't on the panel and failed to impress when they were. But some element of physicality is required if we are to stay in Division 3 next year which will be extremely difficult. We'll be facing Meath, Monaghan, Fermanagh, Antrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Wicklow. Without considerable improvement in defence it's hard to see how we will gather enough points to stay up.

Also the reaction of players like Nesty, Mackey and Sheridan on Twitter about Sunday's game where their primary concern was for Johnston and tearing into Tom Reilly who "started de whole farce" (sic) makes me glad they were dropped. Give me lads like McDermot any day.

If that's their attitude then they should f**k off with him to Kildare! I suppose we may never know for sure how rotten the attitude within the camp was before Andrews did his cull and maybe he was perfectly correct to cut out as many as he did if they were causing problems.

[Westside]

I heard that about Clarke too, also heard he felt that the training and commitment in general around the panel was of a poor standard. If that's why he left well then you couldn't fault him too much. He never lacked for effort any time I saw him playing. Sticking him in corner back is a sign of just how shy of options we are in the full back line. Similar to when Val stuck McCutcheon in corner back against Donegal last year when he was having a stormer at wing back.

I would be slightly worried for Killian Clarke. Two roastings in his first two Senior games won't do his confidence any good. At times on Sunday he was doing his best to stop O'Connor, fouling him even and still couldn't halt his charges forward. He is very young and has a long time to learn but playing in the full back line for Cavan seems to be the fastest route to fading out of the team completely.

Was I the only one who thought McDermott did well enough on Sunday? I thought he was part of some of Cavan's best moves going forward, he weaved through the defence at one point in the first half and Kildare had to take him down, got himself into a great position for a goal in the second half before Flanagan fluffed the pass at the vital moment. His shooting was no better than the rest of our team on the day and he missed an easy free but I thought he did very well in patches. Jack on the other hand seems to have lost a few yards of pace.