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I can't be the only one to enjoy cavanmaniac appraisals of the state of Cavan football. You can't fault your honesty anyway.

Ah here, sure I can't even say I enjoy them meself!

Westmeath couldn't ask for a better draw, if it was another team you could see the highs of the weekend and the celebrations taking their toll but they should have too much quality for Cavan especially in front of a sold out home crowd.

The only tiny variable that a psychologically brittle and gutless team like Cavan have in their favour, is that they'll be far more comfortable and motivated when dismissed and written off as underdogs, under zero expectation or attention. It'd be in keeping with our ingrained low self-confidence and spiritlessness to locate the fire and gumption we otherwise lack, in external circumstances that the fates construe for us occasionally. They will relish this even more against a neighbouring county whose tails are up, and having a chance to take them down a peg or two (there is no real rancour between the counties, but still). It's also worth remembering that awful though we were against a Monaghan team that rightfully gained a lot of admirers that day and later on, we were somehow still alive in that game until its final knockings.

I'm not in any way saying Cavan will win this, far from it, as Westmeath have been operating on a different celestial plane entirely. But I expect the above, along with our very, very experienced core of players (albeit experienced in failure, mostly) to make Westmeath work hard for it, and it might be a more searching outing for them than the coronation and homecoming most predict.

I might look very foolish after that mouthful a little further down the road, but there it is regardless. 

Westmeath will really relish the local bragging rights and sticking it to McCabe after that draw. A good tie for both teams on the face of it, but Cavan wouldn't kick snow off a rope at this stage.

That was astonishing by Monaghan, kudos to them! Equally astonishing was some of the Derry errors when they had a grip on the game they should not have relinquished, more than once.

Holy Jasus, the stones on McCarron to send that over. Shades of Maurice Fitz in Thurles vs. The Dubs.

Fair play to the neighbours for a performance that finally summoned a bit of Farneyness. Derry with plenty of questions to answer after this no matter the final result.

On the ref, I thought he had a solid game overall and was courageous enough to rectify his mistake when there was still time to do so, instead of stubbornly refusing to back down and kicking off the mother of all controversies.

Derry aren't exactly tremendous here but being considerably better than the bloodless soft touches that are Cavan, Monaghan are finding it heavy going. Always fancied Derry to win this but thought it'd be closer.

Cavan minors well beaten by Derry 1-16 to 1-9.

Back to the ass and cart!

Provincial championships were initially a format designed around geography, for a different era, but now that things have moved on, have an imbalancing effect on the national competition. The geographic rationale no longer exists but has been replaced by a much more powerful force - the self-preservation instincts and power base of local career politicians who won't countenance having their status diluted or their fiefdom diminished. That's going to be a hard nut to crack. It's evident that the provincial championships should be run separately at a different time of year, or their outsize weighting and impact on the knockout stages severely curtailed, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

From looking in from the outside, Cavan haven't had too much success at underage in the last decade. Unlucky in an u20 final couple years back against Tyrone in a bit of a dogfight Ulster final. Outside of that, can't remember them being in any other finals. What is the underage like in Cavan these days. In Laois, our underage structures etc. fell miles behind other counties around us and we have been paying for it the last number of years as very few top level players filtering through to the senior ranks. For a county who always prided itself by being able to compete with anyone in Leinster at underage, we have taken some very bad beatings over the last 5/6 years and struggling to win games at minor and u20 level. Our underage success of 20 years ago was part of our undoing. Continue to do things as they were then when other counties were developing and building and putting long term structures in place. Before we woke up to it and now thankfully looking to rectify things properly with the likes of Shane Keegan on board, we as a county fell into apathy. I go to most underage and senior Laois games and it is no lie to say that you could possibly have as many if not more "away" supporters at some of these games. Despite all this, we have an excellent senior manager in Justin McNulty and with a respected former player in Ross Munnelly involved to we are maximising what can be achieved from a limited senior team and hopefully will be there in the shake up for this year's Tailteann Cup. Cavan v Laois make for a great sea of blue and white for the final (if Down and Westmeath do reach the provincial finals and put ye down)!!!! 

I'd love to see Paraic Clancy in his pomp playing these new rules. He'd be landing two-pointers for fun. I'll never forget the boomer he landed against the Dubs at Croke PArk one year, a scarcely believeable point.

What's the problem in Cavan? The manager or are the players not there?

How long have you got?

"The players aren't there", however, is probably the least valid of the reasons you hear bandied about. The players are never there, in any county, until all of a sudden, they are. Like ourselves in 95-97 - first round losses in Ulster for five or six years prior, hence we "didn't have the players". McHugh arrives as boss, we make an Ulster final in his first year and then we're Ulster champions within three years. Oh, the players were actually there, it seems.

Likewise with say,  Louth. The players likely "weren't there" until Harte raised their profile a few years ago, now they are. Meath too. Kildare and Galway around 1998. Countless examples. In reality, "the players aren't there" is simply shorthand for a lack of proper leadership, vision and inspiration that ensures full buy-in from the players available. Cavan's issues are a drifting county board who do everything performatively and don't seem even aware of the slippery slide we're on, much less have a plan to arrest it. The manner in which they currently appoint managers at senior and underage level attest to that - a case of who has a bit of name recognition or "deserves a go at it" or will do it cheap. It's very hard address a problem when you don't even acknowledge you have one. Far easier keep the heads down and rumble on, because nobody is calling it out or tackling them on it.

The general lethargy and acceptance of our lot is a small-county mentality, but then we'll ironically puff the chest and preen about record Ulster titles and five All-Irelands and the polo grounds and other comfort blanket shit like that, that'll only keep reality at arm's length and postpone proper change. The supporters have turned their backs, more or less - there's only so much you can take. I'm looking at Cavan a long time and I can never recall a time when we were as bad, and it's only going to get worse because we've a lot of half decent lads on the teams who will be retiring soon.

It's a real shame that one or both those teams won't make it (hopefully). Produced the 2 performances of the championship so far and no disrespect are far more deserving of their spot than Cavan.
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Couldn't agree more, unfortunately. Like every other year we'd just be everyone else's whipping boys.

I apologise to all neutrals in advance if Cavan retain a Sam Maguire place at the expense of Westmeath or Down.

Surely it is Kildare or Armagh that should apologise for that.

We'd only be turning up to go through the motions and denying the championship two properly-organised football teams that would have a right cut at some of the big boys and provide some entertainment.

I apologise to all neutrals in advance if Cavan retain a Sam Maguire place at the expense of Westmeath or Down.