Official Cavan GAA Thread

[mylestheslasher]

I wonder how much of an influence have the key officers/team managers of the  Cavan Gaels Club got in getting their best players into not playing for the county. To be honest with you any time in the past I was never impressed with them when they played for the county  save for Cathal Collins.
Hope Cavan get the points in Drogheda this afternoon.

The question is how many of the gaels lads are worth their place on the starting 15? Seems to me unless they get on the 1st 15 they aint interested. I doubt that is caused by Gaels officers more likely the ego's of some of their players - although I'm sure there are some with genuine reasons too. Eamonn Reilly is a guy I am disappointed in. Story was he had a big issue with Keoghan (and if the stories are true he had good reason) but why does he not make himself available now?
At the end of the day I want the best players playing for Cavan as long as they want to play for Cavan. If certain players want to disrespect the jersey by refusing to play then I believe it is their loss anyway and something they'll regret when their playing days are behind them. If you think about it, lads that are half hearted are no good to us anyway - they'll only walk when the going gets tough.

[Lawrence of Knockbride]

So when i come of the m1 where do i go to get to the pitch?

Dunno but if you take the exit for slane and navan it's that side of the town so you should find it of after that.

[Celt_Man]

Got a goal and a point in  the first few minutes... Louth get 7 of the next 8 scores.  Cavan don't score for 24 minutes...

[anglocelt39]

Myles,

Elliot, Collins, Gurhy, Crotty, Eamon Reilly, Sean Reilly, Duffy are just a few names that occur to me that are not "available" for whatever reason. Would any of them be worthy of a place on the starting 15? well given the dominance of the Gaels on the Club scene over the past number of years you would have to wonder. Nesty Smith didn't want to play for Coleman, he didn't want to play for Keogan, Carr could have said sure he doesn't want to play, we appear happy enough to have him at the moment. Given how things are going in Drogheda at the moment and in general, it's not as if we're brimming with options. 

[put-it-up]

13 to 1-06..anyone at it? only seven scores...pretty poor.

Heard a wee bit on the radio, we had 1-01 after five minutes so that means we only managed 5 points in 55 minutes. That's just not good enough.

[mylestheslasher]

Myles,

Elliot, Collins, Gurhy, Crotty, Eamon Reilly, Sean Reilly, Duffy are just a few names that occur to me that are not "available" for whatever reason. Would any of them be worthy of a place on the starting 15? well given the dominance of the Gaels on the Club scene over the past number of years you would have to wonder. Nesty Smith didn't want to play for Coleman, he didn't want to play for Keogan, Carr could have said sure he doesn't want to play, we appear happy enough to have him at the moment. Given how things are going in Drogheda at the moment and in general, it's not as if we're brimming with options.

Elliot no better than what we have. Collins was hit and miss at his prime in a Cavan shirt. Crotty had a good season followed up by a terrible one and was never seen again. Duffy played in Keoghans 1st season and did not impress. Maybe they are worth another look. The others would have to prove themselves, which they won't do unless they actually go in  . Smith didn't play for Cavan as he was trying to make the Dublin panel, nothing to do with personalities with managers.

As for Drogheda, put myself through the pain of listening to Northern Sound and it seems like we are a pathetic outfit. We should have players as good as Louth have and they just bet us out the gate. The fact is Carr is not getting anything other than 2nd gear out of what he has, he a poor motivator that tries to cover this up by talking crap to the media every second day. They should give him the boot and at least save a few euros cos I can't see us achieving anything this year except relegation.

[put-it-up]

Yeah iv really lost hope myself, no progress seems to be gettin made at all. Have we improved in any department since TC took over?

[BallyhaiseMan]

Yeah iv really lost hope myself, no progress seems to be gettin made at all. Have we improved in any department since TC took over?

Had a club match so couldnt go,
The answer to that question is no,PIU,we have gottena fair bit worse.
We got Promotion and beat Cork in the league under Keoghan,yet no-one would say his overall regimae was anything approaching good,for a number of reasons.
Carr has no idea,and if he had any self respect,hed walk away now before he takes this team into Division 4.

[put-it-up]

Yeah iv really lost hope myself, no progress seems to be gettin made at all. Have we improved in any department since TC took over?

Had a club match so couldnt go,
The answer to that question is no,PIU,we have gottena fair bit worse.
We got Promotion and beat Cork in the league under Keoghan,yet no-one would say his overall regimae was anything approaching good,for a number of reasons.
Carr has no idea,and if he had any self respect,hed walk away now before he takes this team into Division 4.

We really have. Team seems more lifeless than ever. No real belief. I know the players put in a lot of effort training and all that and at the same time I know they have to shoulder a fair bit of the blame but they are clearly not being prepared/motivated as best as they could be.

There never seems to be any patterns to our play. Let's be honest, at the moment we are fairly limited but I don't think we utilize our strengths.

Any manager looking at the team at the start of the year worth his shillings at all would have realised we can outplay very few other counties. So you have to come up with way's to stop others and use what you have got.

I would have got the team very-fit, got a simple game plan together that's not overcomplicated (ie. hand-pass out of defence and support running), played a two-man full-forward line and looked to get early ball into space.

I'm not saying it would work because I know sweet FA about inter-county management, but that's what I would have tried to do.Can anyone shed any-light on what Cavan's current game-plan is? Show up, go with the flow and see how we get on? That last interview on HS just summed it all up. TC doesn't know whether his team should be going for promotion or avoiding relegation. I mean that just says the team doesn't know what his team is aiming for.

It looks like we are only going one way at the minute and that is down.

[whats my name]

who played well wasn't at the game had a club game. was there a shining light out of this abysmal result? i feel the only place cavan are going is the basement of inter county football

[LUABU]

As a Louthman  with a gra for Cavan , I would be seriously worried for you. This was a poor Louth team especially without Finnegan & Keenan. No doubt you should have been out of sight by half time, to be behind was up there with the loaves and fishes. Showed verylittle fight when it was needed. Where was Cullivan ? tought he had a good Sigerson

[anglocelt39]

Sorry again Myles but your comments about Crotty and Duffy ignore an absolutely important point. When they were playing with varying degrees of personal success we were going toe to toe with Armagh, Derry, Tyrone, Down, Donegal, Meath, Mayo, Duhlin, Cork etc. Elliott, collins, Eamon Reilly and Rabbitte (forgot him first time, sorry) were also around at that time. All blokes still winning county medals and not available to their county team for some reason. You've stated that you see us as being lucky to stay in Division 3 this year and you may be right, but that is simply unacceptable to me in terms of where we have sunk from so quickly. If that's what you are willing to accept of course you will be fairly relaxed about whether blokes make themselves available or not.

I simply refuse to accept that we can sink that far so quickly particularly given all the money that is spent on county panels.

Regarding Duffy and Crotty again, Pierce Mckenna was dire in his first two years lining out for Cavan, we'd take him on one leg now. You have to allow players time to settle into a set up.

There are bigger issues as to why we are where we find ourselves than players from the dominant club not being available for selection, at the same time it's a more important issue (far more important in fact) than the number of times Tommy Carr (or Sean Johnston for that matter) give a quote to the media.

I'm not a Gaels man by any stretch, as you will know.

[Denn Forever]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeyOnNple4M

[mylestheslasher]

Sorry again Myles but your comments about Crotty and Duffy ignore an absolutely important point. When they were playing with varying degrees of personal success we were going toe to toe with Armagh, Derry, Tyrone, Down, Donegal, Meath, Mayo, Duhlin, Cork etc. Elliott, collins, Eamon Reilly and Rabbitte (forgot him first time, sorry) were also around at that time. All blokes still winning county medals and not available to their county team for some reason. You've stated that you see us as being lucky to stay in Division 3 this year and you may be right, but that is simply unacceptable to me in terms of where we have sunk from so quickly. If that's what you are willing to accept of course you will be fairly relaxed about whether blokes make themselves available or not.

I simply refuse to accept that we can sink that far so quickly particularly given all the money that is spent on county panels.

Regarding Duffy and Crotty again, Pierce Mckenna was dire in his first two years lining out for Cavan, we'd take him on one leg now. You have to allow players time to settle into a set up.

There are bigger issues as to why we are where we find ourselves than players from the dominant club not being available for selection, at the same time it's a more important issue (far more important in fact) than the number of times Tommy Carr (or Sean Johnston for that matter) give a quote to the media.

I'm not a Gaels man by any stretch, as you will know.

You are reading what I said wrong. I would like to see them in there but if they don't want to for whatever reason then what can you do. You can't force them in and even if you could their hearts won't be in it. The only reason we will get relegated this year is because the players that have committed are not playing to their potential, do not have belief and are not motivated. The manager is at fault there. There is no team ethic no togetherness. For example, when Mick Higgins died it was a great chance for the team to come together for the funeral, a show of solidarity with a fallen legend and maybe look to the likes of Higgins for inspiration (i.e. Cavan can and have produced the finest of footballers so lets not have low opinions of ourselves). If I were the manager thats how I would have played that one. Instead they went and played a challenge game showing total disrespect to Higgins and the county imo. The manager has a job to do and he is getting paid to do it - make no mistake. Yet all we get is stupid press releases from him and on a Sunday farcical displays by a disorganised team. All these are small things but they are all symptoms of what is wrong - its not all underage structures, training and master degrees in physical fitness. The proof of this is there to see. Mick O Dwyer goes to Wicklow - a county with no history, no belief, no results worth a damn for decades and in a year he makes them competitive and last year he took scalps galore. He didn't make new players or put in new underage structures and he didn't spend every spare minute talking shite about Sigersons Cup etc to the media. He thought them hard work, pride and instilled in them a will to bust a gut for your fellow player in a county famous for in-fighting. As for Seanie Johnson - he needs to stick to working on his game and forget about talking to the press, he still has a way to go to fulfill his potential and to be on the same level as players like Gooch, Bradleys etc. I hope he knuckles down and does it too.

[Lawrence of Knockbride]

A lot of lads not at the game today with a lot of opinions but I won't hold that against anyone as I'm getting a bit fed up of it myself. In defence of Carr if we had taken our chances early on it's likely that some of the negative comments being made now wouldn't have been as fierce. As our Louth contibutor said, this was a bad Louth team and we should've been out of sight. Maybe it was those chances missed as well as some frees missed into the wind that plant seeds of doubt in some of our players. But we never played after that first quarter.
As far as performances go:
1. Fintan-No saves to make but his kicouts were poor into and with the wind. I would disagree that Elliott (if he wants to play) is a worse optoin here. He's not great but he's as good as Fintan.
2. McPhilips-A good game and was frequently out with his man. Deserves to start going forward from here.
3. Corr-Wasn't expoesed badly as I feel he inevitably will but this was due to the lack of ball going in. Also Flangan and Clarke swept in front of him quite well in the first half.
4. Cahill-Did ok. Again wasn't beaten to the few balls that came in but you can see he's bursting to play further out the field to utilise his main asset-his running off the ball in support of attacks. Was vey vocal in trying to get the lads going too.
5. Clarke-Got a straight red late for stamping (I heard). Did ok but didnt' support going forward. Left his man a lot to cover the centre which was obviously a ploy. So maybe we had a plan afterall.
6. McGuigan-Not in the game enough for me at this position but nobody ran through this area either but this was probably down to the opposition and their style of play.
7. Flagnagn-Good first half where he swept up inside and drove forward a couple of times.
8. Galligan-Quiet but didn't do anything wrong and set up the goal well. Harshly taken of for L****n.
9. Sheridan-Very poor. I've been a fan and thought he was being played out of position last year. But in the last two games, in two different positions he's looked clumsy, sleepy and generally uninterested which is very unlike him. Disillusionment?
10. McKeever-Dropped deep first half and worked hard coming forward from deep but disappeared second half.
11. Nesty-Worked harder defensively than most and more than he has done. Didn't do himself justice on the ball and missed a bad free first half although the wind seemed strong.
12. Givney-Good first half where he took 2 or 3 marks and was on the ball more than others by dropping deep and further infield (another tactical plan that worked insofar as getting on the ball at least). Set up some decent attacks first half but also largely disappeared second half.
13. Mackey-Probably our best player and was a constant thorn in the first half drawing frees and scoring the goal.
14. Brennan-Was involved in a couple of the missed early goal chances but looked cumbersome and was withdrawn. Maybe not up to fitness yet.
15. Galligan-The honeymoon is over. Looked slow and awkward. Was off-target with his frees and didn't provide much of a target. Taken off.

Subs:
Lyng-played well, got involved in the second half but unfortunately the others didn't follow suit. Wasn't great in previous games but still a strange omission for me.
Eddie-Nothing good to say, no say nothing. Shouted a bit and feel over a bit more.
Mulvey-Came on to the pitch in quite a straight line so credit where it's due. Threw a couple of punches into Aaron Hoey when he was being shackled by two men, had a little jog with the ref for a chat while we were building an attack, let his man have a 30 metre head start in an attack before a lung bursting, cape flying out, sprint back to catch him and finally kicked a free on to the head of the referee. But he's a nice lad off the pitch (Sorry Boojangles but my face is turning red trying to be light-hearted about him)
Hannon-Not on long but gave away one free from one tackle.

Referee-Awful for both teams but why would he be the exception

As you'll have noticed most of my points reflect our performance in the first half. The reason being that the second half just seemed to pass by with a series of Louth frees and points so although our defence wasn't terrible we offered nothing to get back into the game and we were beaten badly at midfield.
I'm no fan of Carr and I think he maybe should go as it may be that the players have lost faith in themselves and him. At this point in time I don't really give a shit. We might stay up, we might go down, we won't go up. f**k it.