Official Cavan GAA Thread

[Itchy]

Cavan (FL Division 2 v Down) – Conor Gilsenan; Jason McLoughlin, Rory Dunne, Killian Brady; Ronan Flanagan, Fergal Flanagan, Damien O'Reilly; Killian Clarke, Gearoid McKiernan; Paul Smith, Dara McVeety, Martin Reilly; Micheal Lyng, Martin Dunne, Niall McDermott.

[mylestheslasher]

Wasn't able to make the match in person yesterday but did watch it on TV. Such a frustrating performance from Cavan. I know the conditions were horrible but even they cannot make up for some of the terrible decision making and poor passing we displayed. I'm not sure what Terry is playing at with Martin Dunne, he is clearly a total waste of a jersey in conditions like that. Even ball he was 80:20 to win yesterday he was losing and then some of the idiotic shots he was taking, especially in the first half, were ridiculous. McDermott worked hard and won a lot of ball but its the end product and decision making again that is the problem. Niall won't take a man on for example and some of his passing once he won the ball were very poor. This is the 3rd game in a row where this was the case with Dunne & McDermott. Elsewhere we were also poor. Clarke was quiet but I understand he was recovering from Flu. Gearoid was also poor, missed two good chances and did very little in the match. All around the field key players were well of  the standard - Martin Reilly for example did very little. Down were not much better either but for a goal which somehow left a man on the 6 yard box with no one near him and that was that. Given both teams were poor the sending off had a big bearing on the result. Both cards were extremely harsh and were more to do with the spectacular falls than fouls (i've had the benefit of replays).

Someone also needs to tell Gilsenan he cannot pick the ball of the ground outside the small box, he did it twice and got away with it both time - very lucky. Downs forward also touched the ball on the ground on the lead up to their goal though!

I fear a little for us now. Can't see us beating Kildare and we have no options in the forwards that I can see to improve things too much. If we lose that we will be right in the relegation dog fight with only one home game left.

[Denn Forever]

Welcome to the big boys league.

Disappointing end to the game when we'd drawn level.  Only listened to on the radio but we seemed to revert to the old habit of going around the garden before trying a shot especially when we seemed  to have lost that habit  in the last two games.

[mylestheslasher]

Don't think Down are a "big boy" Denn. I thought they were pretty poor too but they put in a good last quarter when we were a man down and deserved their win. The problem with us is we know the problems we have, but I'm not sure we have the personnel to fix it. I think Terry needs to get on the blower to Givney and Keating and see would they reconsider their decisions as right now we are very one dimensional and predictable in the forwards and I know Monaghan will snuff us out easily in the championship too unless we change something.

[Westside]

I always like to give management the benefit of the doubt but I really wonder why they are persisting with Dunne.. There is a lack of options certainly and he did well for his two points but other than that we were basically carrying a man in the full forward line. I think choosing to play against the wind in the first half was a good plan but backfired in that the wind and rain had eased slightly and Down didn't find conditions as tough playing against the wind. An extremely harsh red card and woeful conditions conspired against us, but even so we didn't show enough to deserve a result.

[Itchy]

Better day today for us. Kildare beaten, St pats through to mcrory final and ladies do 4 in a row by trouncing down.

[rodney trotter]

Poor call to send off Flanagan, the player was going to ground before Flanagan touched him, the ground conditions given the weather and all meant it was hard to stay up. Referee should have shown a bit of sense

Good win for Pats, article on the Pats Senior team from back in 07 http://t.co/lrMEz9aj67

[Old yeller]

Poor call to send off Flanagan, the player was going to ground before Flanagan touched him, the ground conditions given the weather and all meant it was hard to stay up. Referee should have shown a bit of sense

Good win for Pats, article on the Pats Senior team from back in 07 http://t.co/lrMEz9aj67

I was at the game and thought Flanagan deserved a yellow for the second foul. High tackle. As for Dunne, forget about him. Has he ever taken on his man and beat him? As someone said, he cant win 80-20 balls never mind 50-50 ones! McDermot not going great at the minute either, they have only scored a few points from play between them. The conditions were terrible in fairness the other night. The wind was very strong,  particularly in the first half.
We are basically playing without a full forward line at the minute. Why not stick Argue in there? Keating and Givney would be some addition to it

[rodney trotter]

Poor call to send off Flanagan, the player was going to ground before Flanagan touched him, the ground conditions given the weather and all meant it was hard to stay up. Referee should have shown a bit of sense

Good win for Pats, article on the Pats Senior team from back in 07 http://t.co/lrMEz9aj67

I was at the game and thought Flanagan deserved a yellow for the second foul. High tackle. As for Dunne, forget about him. Has he ever taken on his man and beat him? As someone said, he cant win 80-20 balls never mind 50-50 ones! McDermot not going great at the minute either, they have only scored a few points from play between them. The conditions were terrible in fairness the other night. The wind was very strong,  particularly in the first half.
We are basically playing without a full forward line at the minute. Why not stick Argue in there? Keating and Givney would be some addition to it

Did you not see the replays of it on Tg4 last night? Down people were surprised he was put off
Flanagan made no contact. Down probaly the better team on the night but the sending off was a turning point. Cavan were coming strong at that stage

Keating could be back on the panel yet, it was said at the time there was a possibility he could still play County football this year, when he left. I doubt Giveny will be playing County football this year though.

[Old yeller]

Poor call to send off Flanagan, the player was going to ground before Flanagan touched him, the ground conditions given the weather and all meant it was hard to stay up. Referee should have shown a bit of sense

Good win for Pats, article on the Pats Senior team from back in 07 http://t.co/lrMEz9aj67

I was at the game and thought Flanagan deserved a yellow for the second foul. High tackle. As for Dunne, forget about him. Has he ever taken on his man and beat him? As someone said, he cant win 80-20 balls never mind 50-50 ones! McDermot not going great at the minute either, they have only scored a few points from play between them. The conditions were terrible in fairness the other night. The wind was very strong,  particularly in the first half.
We are basically playing without a full forward line at the minute. Why not stick Argue in there? Keating and Givney would be some addition to it

Did you not see the replays of it on Tg4 last night? Down people were surprised he was put off
Flanagan made no contact. Down probaly the better team on the night but the sending off was a turning point. Cavan were coming strong at that stage

Keating could be back on the panel yet, it was said at the time there was a possibility he could still play County football this year, when he left. I doubt Giveny will be playing County football this year though.

I haven't seen a single replay of it to be honest, im just going by how it looked in real time. I agree that it changed the game, we had gotten well on top at that point I thought.

[mylestheslasher]

So how bad are Kildare, you'd have to believe their will be a backlash at this stage or they are heading to Div 3. Down have shown them how to beat us. I think we are going to struggle and given that McEnroe played no part and Mackey was only bizarrely introduced for 2 minutes, that neither of those guys is ready for next Saturday. I can only presume Jack Brady was also injured. Not too hopeful but only positive is that Kildare have to be low on confidence so if we can get a good start maybe we can heap more doubt on them. I'd look at the following team...

Gilsenan
McLoughlin
Dunne
Hayes
Damien Reilly
McEnroe
Fergal Flanagan
Clarke
McKiernan
McVeety
Lyng/Jack Brady
Barry Reilly
Ronan Flanagan (Sweeper)
McDermott
Martin Reilly

Martin Reilly is a marked man out the field so I'd try him in FF line, great man to win a dirty ball. Dunne is not at the races. HF line is a bit light granted. Maybe move Damien Reilly to HF and bring in Gunner at wing back with strict instructions never to kick the ball! What ye reckon.

[Denn Forever]

All I hope is that they go back to trying to score points from distance like they did against Laois.  Also kick the ball dead so the Goalie can't start attacks.

[rodney trotter]

If Cavan manager Terry Hyland were running an economy, he would deploy a low-spend, low-tax model.

That's the obvious conclusion to be reached from some remarkable scoring trends produced by his squad over recent seasons. By the time they line up against Kildare in Kingspan Breffni Park on Saturday evening, they will have gone seven hours and 12 minutes without scoring a league goal.

Their last league goal came against Longford in the Round 5 of last year's campaign. Since then, they have drawn a blank against Roscommon (twice) and Limerick in Division 3 and against Roscommon, Laois and Down in Division 2 this season.

They scored one goal in three championship outings last year against Armagh, Westmeath and Roscommon, having earlier hit a total of four goals in eight league games.

The goal shyness goes back to 2013 when they scored four goals in their last six league games before notching another four in seven championship games. Even then, one of the championship goals was scored in extra-time against Derry.

Excluding that goal, it leaves Cavan's total for their last 27 league and championship ties at 12. That's an average of one goal every two hours and 37 minutes.

The goal-shortage saga is completed by Cavan's failure to score two goals in a league or championship game since the opening round (v Antrim) of the 2013 league. Ironically, they lost that game, whereas they have done well overall since then.

Promotion

They reached the 2013 All-Ireland quarter-final for the first time and clinched promotion to Division 2 last year. And while they lost to Down last Saturday, they had taken three of a possible four points in the first two rounds, keeping them very much in the promotion race.

While Cavan's goal rate has been very low, the defensive side of their game remains impressively solid. Their average giveaway in three league games this year was 13.3 points. They were even meaner in Division 3 last year, conceding a total of 1-67 (70 points) in seven games before Roscommon enjoyed more freedom against them in the final in Croke Park, scoring 1-17.

Striking the balance between building a secure defence while also releasing enough energy to power the attacking generator remains a big test for Hyland if Cavan are to advance in the manner the supporters expect after watching so much fine U-21 talent emerge over recent years.

Four successive Ulster U-21 titles have come Cavan's way since 2011, raising hopes in the county that presenting the Sam Maguire Cup to a fellow-county man will be one of happy duties for new GAA president Aogan O Fearghail.

Former Mayo star Liam McHale is working with Cavan this year and, presumably, increasing the goal rate will be on his agenda after such a long low-yield run.


Hopefully this trend changes sooner then later.

[mylestheslasher]

Its easy for some journalist in Dublin to write this type of stuff and it is of course factually true. The problem is that Cavan are very very short on players for the full forward line. McDermott is not a natural full forward and Dunne is not a player that will beat a man. To open up the full back line you need players with pace and power. If the journalist in question knows of any forwards in Cavan with pace and power then he should let us know. For me the best we have available is on the panel. Now that being said we need to try to do something different in that full forward line as it has not functioned for 3 games now. We need to try something different and we need to do it now, not in the summer against Monaghan.

I have a lot of time for Terry and what he has done but for me he has been too slow to address this glaring weakness. Terrys own flaw in my opinion is that he is slow to change - to a point I can understand that as you do need consistency.

If I were in charge of the team I'd look at Martin Reilly and McDermott inside (especially if its going to be windy), I'd try and play against the wind and maybe introduce Dunne in the 2nd half with the wind. If McEnroe is fit he needs to play. I'd get Moynagh in there to put in some quality balls.

Unfortunately I think we will likely see more of the same and I would be very sceptical of us getting a result against a Kildare team that has to win for survival.

[rodney trotter]

http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.northernsound.ie%2Fsport%2Fmickey-graham-believes-cavan-will-keep-promotion-alive-in-division-2%2F&ei=7df6VIjQKJOu7Aaq_IHQDQ&usg=AFQjCNFWM3nDoNj23nm0w_tYqa2BcNre_g&bvm=bv.87611401,d.ZGU

Player like Graham would be handy inside.