Cavan can shade toughest of battles against the Rossies
Familiarity may breed contempt, which will be no harm - some extra motivation might be just what Cavan need if this season is to stretch much longer into the summer, writes PAUL FITZPATRICK.
On the face of it, it looks like the draw nobody wanted but the Cavan management may have been quietly grinning when their troops were paired with Roscommon in round two of the qualifiers.
Momentum is a very valuable currency in the back door – teams labour to a win or two and suddenly find themselves trading off it all the way to Croke Park.
Some of it depends on the luck of the draw but what is crucial is a team getting over the fact that their engine backfired in the provincial championship and understanding the reality that the season has not breathed its last. Sometimes an early proviincial defeat is no bad thing in any case; the bad diesel, to which Paidi O Se often referred, can be blown out and the motor can be made purr again.
We saw it with Fermanagh in 2004 on what was the most famous 'back door’ odyssey of them all. They lost to Tyrone in their Ulster opener and rolled a six when Tipp withdrew from their qualifier match. Next up was a Meath team in transition – Fermanagh grabbed the opportunity and beat them by a point, before hammering Cork and beating Donegal by a point.
The mighty men of Armagh were next. When the Orchard boys heard the draw, Oisin McConville has admitted, a cheer rang out, but Fermanagh turned them over, winning by a point again.
It was a victory for momentum, confidence and fearlessness.
Opportunity
It took Cavan a long, long time to grasp the opportunity presented by the back door system. While the format favours the stronger counties in the long run (whatever about a weaker county toppling a Dublin or a Kerry once, twice is statistically much less likely), it also perfectly tailored for the oppressed.
Bar the odd sporadic uprising, Cavan’s spirit was consistently crushed over the decades by the superpowers of Ulster; surely, the novelty factor alone of facing fresh opposition should have stirred something in the royal blue and white hordes.
That, bar 2005 when Cavan made the last 12, it didn’t, is possibly due to the county’s position way out in front of the Ulster roll of honour – The Anglo-Celt cup holds a precious place in the heart and history of Cavan football and when a chance at winning it was gone, maybe the players just weren’t convinced there was anything else worth playing for.
The years fell by like the rain, as the song says, and vague notions of advancing were washed away on horrible evenings in Aughrim, in Cork, in Newbridge and in Limerick and a dozen other venues.
All of that changed last year, of course. Terry Hyland’s charges had worked too hard to let their season slip away and they embraced the challenge. Like Fermanagh 10 years ago, they got some luck – London, propping up Division 4 of the league and with a replay win over Leitrim on their ledger, were the opposition in the last 12 – but, also like Fermanagh, Cavan earned it, too.
Just as with Saturday’s opponents, Cavan had played Fermanagh twice in a few months and three times in the preceding year before they were drawn to face them again. They came through that one emphatically and then sacked Derry’s castle, a championship performance which represented a high-water mark, 16 years to the day – July 20 – since the previous best showing, the 1997 Ulster final win over the same opposition.
Maybe that said more about the intervening years than anything but it was still a notable achievement against a good team who went on to contest a Division 1 NFL final a few months later.
While the familiarity with the opposition is almost identical, what is different this time around is the run-in. Cavan had two wins under their belt in Ulster last year, and a luckless one-point semi-final loss to Monaghan from which to draw sustenance, before they faced Fermanagh again. That marked three good performances, whereas, this time, they’re going in with one dire showing against Armagh and an iffy win over Westmeath.
Given the low ebb the Lakesiders were at and their complete lack of confidence, only a comprehensive victory would have restored the good feeling around the current Cavan team.
As it is, the win raised more questions than it answered. Were Cavan so much better than Westmeath that, issue decided, they eased off? Or did they, as the scoreline suggests, just about shade it?
Westmeath are no bad team but remember what we said about momentum and confidence – theirs were at critically-low levels. In the week before the game, Paul Bealin was quoted as saying he wanted to build a Westmeath team that wins as often as it loses, a remarkable statement which hints at the lack of morale in their camp.
And yet, they could have scraped a draw, John Heslin skewing an unmissable free wide in the dregs of the match. So, again, we still don’t know just how good Cavan are. Are they good enough to beat Roscommon?
At their best, absolutely. But Cavan’s best comes when Gearoid McKiernan and David Givney are ruling the skies, Cian Mackey is skinning defenders, Eugene Keating is holding off his man and shooting on sight, Killian Clarke is storming out of defence like a train, Ronan Flanagan is picking out passes and Martin Dunne is the designated trigger man and has his sights calibrated to perfection.
Just one of those players started against Westmeath, with Mackey - who is clearly still hampered by injury - showing in a 10-minute cameo that he is not the force of nature we saw in 2013, when, regardless of the views of the All-Star selectors, he was the best wing-forward in the land.
Work-rate
Reasons to be cheerful? Cavan won against the head - their hand was considerably weakened by injuries, suspensions and defections but they did enough which, in the end, is all that matters.
From the team that started against Kerry in Cavan’s final championship match last year, nine - Alan O’Mara (opted out), Killian Clarke (away), Alan Clarke (not selected), Ronan Flanagan (away), Cian Mackey (injured), Dara McVeety (away), Feargal Flanagan (suspended), Martin Dunne (suspended) and Eugene Keating (not selected) - didn’t start against Westmeath, yet Cavan still had enough about them to come through it.
Cavan are not blessed with mercurial attacking talents a la Dublin or Kerry and, as such, play to their strengths with a defence-based approach. That system depends on a ferocious work-rate; players must sacrifice their own game, in many cases, for the overall good of the team. Such a system is sustainable so long as the motivation levels remain high. Drawing a Clare team, say, with their eye on a scalp would scarcely provide that motivation - Roscommon just might.
Who will win it, then? This match could literally not be more finely-poised - the bookmakers make it even money on both.
Roscommon are top-heavy with forwards, whereas Cavan are set up to stifle and pick off scores on the break. The Rossies will be stinging after letting Mayo wriggle off the rack in the Connacht semi-final, Cavan know they didn’t do themselves justice in Ulster and will be hurting from allowing Roscommon to take the Division 3 crown back over the Shannon.
That last part could be the difference. Make no mistake, losing that final in Croke Park deflated this Cavan team; it was like pricking a balloon with a pin. Suddenly, there was nothing tangible to show for all this effort, no gleaming trophy to wave at the begrudgers and naysayers.
Drawing Roscommon again gives Hyland’s men a chance to right that wrong, and a chance, like Fermanagh in 2004, to ride the wave of the qualifiers and see where it takes them.
The heart says Cavan; the head can’t split them. Whose need is greater? This time, ours is. Cavan by two.
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