Official Cavan GAA Thread

[Maximus Marillius]

Went down to your game and Monaghans on saturday night. Very disappointed with the fair. Went as an Ulster man, thought Monaghan would get it tough and expected ye to do better. Unfortunately ye were a mess, no midfield with a shity full back and I have to say ye are as small a team as I have seen at couny level for many a year. Brennan is not county standard. Your keeper much be absolutely stupid. Down will be extremely difficult to beat on this performance

[BallyhaiseMan]

Max
we have been complaining about the lack of big men on the team for months.
The Waterford Manager described us as the "Smallest Senior Intercounty team" hes ever seen according to one of the cavan posters on here.
(PS Max Ballyhaise won at the weekend  )

[Maximus Marillius]

Haise how many is thbat ye have won in this years league....and how many have ye lost?

[BallyhaiseMan]

1 win 1 draw and 2 defeats Max

[CavanCola]

From the Hoganstand:

"The Cavan school never looked back after Smith struck for two goals in the first half. During the same period, however, two Virginia players – Eugene Keating and Michael Smith – were stretchered off with serious injuries."


Are these two guys on the cavan minor team? Anyone know how badly injured they are?

[BallyhaiseMan]

Eugene Keating is a super player and would have been one of the key players for the Cavan Minors this year,
Not sure about Michael Smith.

[The Bottom Brick]

Keating beat Monaghan minors on his own 2 weeks ago.

Suspected fractured ankle according to Irish News. That's the minors fucked as well then

[anglocelt39]

Sorry to be a real bore here folks but I'm going to get back to a topic I banged on about before going into winter hibernation. It's topical in view of the crazy decision making on the line on Saturday night. Who is the boss man, Keogan or Grimley? This is not a trick question, I just want to know where the buck stops. From my understanding, Grimley was seriously rated up in Armagh and left because he saw his way to Joes job as being blocked by some appointment or other up there.

I imagine we can take it then that this is a seriously ambitious guy, willing to back his own judgement. If he got restless being Kernan's understudy it's fair to say he didn't come down here to be Keogan's Number 2, well not unless there is serious mullah involved, and we know our county board would not waste their money on an expensive journeyman, now would they.

I don't want to get negative at an early stage of the season, we got up, maybe we will learn some lessons for the Down game. However, I would love to know what the structure is because if it's not clear to the playing panel, say, it's not going to work. If it's not clear (e.g If Grimley feels like he is punching with one hand tied behind his back) it probably won't last too long.

Any insights welcome.

[trim blue]

Anglo, the last time I checked it was still McCabe who was calling all the shots

[mylestheslasher]

The rumour at the time of the appointment was that Keoghan was forking out the dosh himself to bring Grimley and others on board and that it was this that swung the job his way instead of cassidy. I did notice at the start of the game the team moved up to the canal end with Grimley doing their warm up drills and Keoghan was down at hill 16 collecting balls and doddling up the field with them. Looked more like a ball-boy than a manager.
I do have a sneaking suspicion that the management way have a plan B for the championship. In the past we have totally shown our hand during good league campaigns giving our opposition in the championship plenty of time to come up with a formula to beat us. Maybe this time we are keeping them guessing?? Or maybe I am giving too much credit to what seems, on the face of it, a poor management team.

[The Bottom Brick]

Grimley's the main man, Keogan's only a front. During I think it was the Sligo match, I saw Grimley warming up a sub and bringing him on when Keogan was 50 yards away oblivious...

To give them some credit, at one stage the fella I was sitting beside turned to me and said "if you were the manager, what would you?", and he had a point. We had nothing on the bench to solve midfield - Galligan and Thomas just don't cut it - and we had already moved Hannon in to full back. What else was there to do??

By the way, Jason HAD to have been injured (I heard after he was carrying a niggle)? Surely...

[cavan4ever]

I do have a sneaking suspicion that the management way have a plan B for the championship. In the past we have totally shown our hand during good league campaigns giving our opposition in the championship plenty of time to come up with a formula to beat us.

If there isn't a plan B Down will hammer us because its the same system the whole league and every county knows it now.  The more i think about Saturday nite it was a bad  performance but was it as bad as it looked.  If we had of won even 35-40% at midfield and converted a small amount of the wides we prob would have won the game, maybe im totally wrong. 

Maybe my head is gone but im not going to give up on them yet.

[Uladh]

Why were cavan so poor at midfield and are there personnel who could come in and make a difference?

[cavanmaniac]

Uladh, McCabe was our only recognised, fit intercounty midfielder for last Saturday night. He had an industrious first 15 mins or so then completely tired and was bossed about by O'Neill. His partner Michael Brennan is a utility man but isn't much good at any of the jobs he's put in to do. He has been tried in virtaully every defensive position, midfield and half forwards and might make a decent fist of wing back but you wouldn't be overly confident.

Other midfielders on panel are Walsh (injured), Mulvey (suspended) and Galligan (came on with a min to go, rumoured to have had a knock but looked to be moving very freely in warm up before throw-in). These guys are all big, tall and phyiscal and should make a difference when they return. None of them are exactly in the mould of Darragh O'Se or anything but they should disrupt the opposition and support McCabe more effectively, and hopefully break the ball to a set of half backs and forwards who are positioned and primed to dive in much better than they were on Saturday night.

The plan B idea is nice to cling to but from what I could see, we were foot-down, out to our last on Sat night and it's hard to see where much improvement will come from. As someone said, it's ironic to think we're all looking forward to Walsh's return as much as we are but needs must...with two of the above three back, Lyng starting and hopefully some sort of heed taken of where we went wrong and mistakes made against Roscommon, we can be competitive against Down.

[trim blue]

I do have a sneaking suspicion that the management way have a plan B for the championship. In the past we have totally shown our hand during good league campaigns giving our opposition in the championship plenty of time to come up with a formula to beat us.

If there isn't a plan B Down will hammer us because its the same system the whole league and every county knows it now.  The more i think about Saturday nite it was a bad  performance but was it as bad as it looked.  If we had of won even 35-40% at midfield and converted a small amount of the wides we prob would have won the game, maybe im totally wrong. 

Maybe my head is gone but im not going to give up on them yet.

The more I think about it the more I see the main problem with MF and FB masking another equally big problem which is to do with our use of the possession we do get. Countless times especially in the 2nd half our moves broke down through lack of precision in either foot or hand passing or through lack of concentartion. This was nothing to do with lack of size or power. This lack of accurracy was also evident in the amount of wides we had. Up to their 1st goal we were actually doing well, we were a point up but then Jelly missed coming in off his corner and Gallagher missed badly when well placed, he also gave away another ball or two at this stage with poor passes inside. In the lead up to the killer 2nd goal Fannin (or Duggan as the announcer called him going off) lost possession of a ball he was first to on our '40. They were still much the better side but while they won midfield through their own efforts our efforts helped them greatly too elsewhere around the pitch. Improving on this aspect of our game can be helped by drills, more time with the ball but there is still the question of basic natural ability and whether we are 'good enough'. I certainly think we can improve in this area and with a lot of the same players we have done it in the past. The consolation for me is that we were not beatan on Sat while fielding our best players or best team so there has to be grounds for some hope in the Championship. If we get Mulvey/Walsh in there for Down and have Lyng fit and rarin to go from the start on the '40 then even this will improve greatly on the performance we saw on Sat. After that some positional switches (Fannin back to CB, Hannon to FB, Forde to CHB etc) could also give us that 30% improvement thats needed.