Published: Wednesday, 4th January, 2012 5:30pm

Andrews hoping students will help Cavan make the grade in McKenna Cup

Val Andrews reorganises his team.

After a summer of discontent, Cavan's senior footballers will look to usher in a spring of renewed hope this Sunday with an opening round win over defending Dr McKenna Cup champions Derry - writes Kevin Carney.

Cavan will travel to Celtic Park (throw-in, 2pm) for their first competitive game since suffering a double whammy last June at the hands of Donegal (1-8 to 2-14) and Longford (0-11 to 2-16) in the Ulster SFC and All-Ireland Qualifiers respectively.

The game against the Oak Leafers this weekend is a repeat of last January's Dr McKenna Cup tie when Cavan lost out by 1-10 to 1-12 at Kingspan/Breffni Park.

That defeat marked the return in a Cavan bib, after almost 10 years, of current county supremo Val Andrews, but the Dublin native feels his adopted county has a better platform from which to go forward now than this time last year:

"The team management is better off now than we were last January in the sense that it's a year on and we know more about the fellas at our disposal.

"We've a good set-up and have got good lads on board and we're pushing on. John (Morrisson) getting sick was a concern although he is still there, helping us out in the background but he won't feature along the sideline until at least next month, even though he's making good progress thankfully." Apart from Derry, Andrews and Co will have to face down the challenges of Donegal and University of Ulster, Jordanstown (UUJ) in their group.

See this week's Celt for more on this article...