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I think Cavan will be sickened surely, yes, but not half enough - the other thing is there'll be too much solace also taken. Sure didn't we do well, weren't we competitive, with a bit more luck we'd have won, the ref was against us...we have no shortage of moral victories and excuses down the decades and plenty of security blankets to fall back on. That's why we struggle to truly move the needle despite having resources much better than many other counties.

Our level of performance has probably been a little better than Tyrone going into the next game so ordinarily you'd have to say we've a chance, but it's still too early in McCabe's resign for him to have addressed the above issues. You don't clean that stuff up overnight.

Is that like the Meath/Cavan Breffni Park stat?? Meath hadn't beaten Cavan in Breffni since 1965.. in reality they only played in Breffni four times since '65 and one of them was a draw.

Unfortunately, that 1997 win is the last time Cavan beat Tyrone at senior level in league or championship, and we've suffered plenty of humiliations a long the way too, despite beating some teams that themselves could beat Tyrone regularly in the same era. The Cavan mental baggage when facing Tyrone is bordering on the farcical at this stage, in the modern era when there's all sorts of gurus and psychologists it really (pardon the pun) boggles the mind how we routinely get our arses red-handed to us. Our inability to press on and deliver a knockout blow in championship Breffni a few years back, after clawing back a huge deficit against one of the worst-prepared Tyrone championship sides in living memory, is exhibit A here - when the winning line beckoned, Cavan froze.

You should get out more. Most of them think they are a step above Monaghan even though Monaghan have been top 8 team for 12 years.

Congratulations on winning the "Top 8 team for 12 Years" trophy, then, I guess? With love and respect from Cavan.

Yep, there's a lot of wild predictions here every week of Cavan losing by 8 and what have you. We're not great, but Jesus we're not THAT bad, like. That said, we'll be going to Omagh with huge pressure on, on top of the baggage and scar tissue we usually carry, so it'll be another bad day at the office next time out too I'm afraid.

Kind of fitting that the stand-offish preference to mark space that characterised Cavan's play most of the day was what done for them in the end with that 2-pointer there. Good effort by the home team, plenty of hard work, but to be honest, Meath left a lot of scores behind them too. You never, ever fancy Cavan to see it home in a tight finish anyway, they just don't have the stuff.

Maybe just a lack of belief. Meath have left some amount of scores out there. Cavan still in it though.

Cavan teams over the years would have been a much different proposition with their heads right, but we've rarely managed it.

Cavan level at half-time despite steadfastly refusing to tackle any Meath player for most of the game and attacking at a speed that suggests they were running through treacle in wellies. Meath playing with more pace, strength and incision, but if Cavan pick things up like they were starting to do approaching the short whistle, they might make a game of it.

Tyrone lads, if you're down in the dumps today, just remember you've Cavan coming to Omagh soon, to no doubt roll over passively and dutifully provide a morale-boosting win! 😉

Three derbies means there will be draws this weekend, possibly as much due to even-upper refs as anything else!

Derry v Tyrone - Tyrone by 2
Cavan v Meath - Don't ask me why, or where I got this newfound faith in Cavan, but I think this will be one of the draws
Louth v Cork - Cork by 3+, with the usual health warnings on "enigmatic" Cork
Kildare v Offaly - Draw

Cork in Week 1, Louth, Offaly and Kildare would be/would've been Cavan's best prospects for points this campaign. Wouldn't budget for us getting anything against Meath at all although the derby factor might keep it close until we accept our fate late on again.

Cavan lose by a point to Cork, having lead by seven at one stage in the second half. It seems McCabe's Westmeath habit of building a lead before losing games narrowly at the death is a perfect marriage with his native county, so often  found wanting when things get truly down to brass tacks. Still feel Cavan could prove better than the minimum of two other counties in this division and stay up, but taking nothing from today is a massive opportunity left behind.

Not at all upset to Cavan roundly written off - we need every advantage we can get - and while nobody in the county is predicting glory I do think we'll stay up. We've done all our best work in league in recent seasons and with a new manager you'd have to expect enough of a bounce to keep us afloat. A lot of departures from the panel by all accounts (the local media is receiving very little information) but a good few were reaching the end of the road anyway and the whole thing needed shaking up for sure.

1. Tyrone
2. Derry
3. Meath
4. Louth
5. Cork
6. Cavan
7. Kildare
8. Offaly

Cavan and Roscommon seem to be in stasis over the past year, they can play well the odd time, but the pair of them don't seem like they are on the up.

What would be the idea of a positive season there?

I had lads from Cavan tell me there were agin McCabe but it all seemed to be fairly frictionless. What would be the expectations there?

Stasis is the word. The pall of inertia hanging over the county teams in Cavan, and total lack of any sense of emergency or organised plan to rectify it - can't fix the problem without first acknowledging there is one - is incredible to witness. Attendances falling off, public losing interest and instead of a root and branch inquiry and fresh plan of attack, we get a coronation instead of an appointment process. Whatever your opinion on McCabe, nobody should waltz into the job like they're doing that job a favour rather than the other way around, and if there's a sub committee in place (supposedly) overseeing it all, ought they not to have debated and pinpointed the current problems, researched extensively and come up with a definitive list of names and cast a wide net for a person best suited and qualified to tackle those problems? What was the process here? Was there one at all? "Ah sure we wanted a Cavan person and only one was nominated" is amateur hour stuff given the evident lack of direction, and absence of heart and guts in our supine county players, laid bare any time we so much as smell any Tyrone team within ten miles of us. And a good number of them are approaching retirement anyway. Genuinely, Division 3/4 is beckoning as there's damn all coming through but it's a case of "all good, nothing to see here".
The current state of affairs would make you pine for the early 90s because dreadful as our results were the whole county was still full square behind our team and somehow we had a county board with the vision to appoint Martin McHugh. The current crop? Too busy trying to build a stadium to host big games Cavan will never appear in. If you think I'm exaggerating, ask yourself how any "serious" football county can still profess to be as much, having gone since 1952 without appearing in an All-Ireland final, and win two Ulster seniors in 56 years? There should be alarm bells ringing all over the place but the leadership is absent and asleep at the wheel.

I don't know the ins and outs. It's a weird setup as he's employed by Cavan County board already as a Games Development Officer. Maybe he was hedging his bets to stay in Westmeath if he didn't get the Cavan gig, or didn't want to appear presumptuous by stepping down in anticipation of what now looks like a coronation rather than an appointment.

Managerial appointment processes in Cavan are seldom too cerebral. These are the same people that appointed Mattie McGleenan, remember, and a whole host of others subsequently pursued by absolutely no other county board afterwards. They're seldom too considered, but now that the whole focus is on the shiny new stadium it'll be given even less thought than usual. Fwiw, McCabe has a decent enough reputation locally in managerial know-how terms, but he's inheriting a bit of a dog's dinner of older guys reaching the end and players without a winning mindset/weak mentality. We could and should be doing better, but I wouldn't hold my breath.