'Gunner' shooting for the top flight

Paul Fitzpatrick

Four days out from an enormous test against Galway and Cavan senior defender Killian Brady is fairly relaxed.

While he's a combative presence on the pitch – and has a scar over his eye at present to prove it – the 24-year-old Mullahoran man is a laidback character off it.

Shooting the breeze with the press pack at today's event ahead of round seven, 'the Gunner' was happy to give his thoughts on how Cavan turned their season around.

“I have to say it's probably a mental thing,” he said.

“At the start of the year, you look to win all those games but unfortunately [Tyrone and Derry] didn't go our way. We knew we weren't that far off clicking and that was the positive thing going into the three-week break, we knew we had stuff to work on, and coming out of it, we knew we had addressed some of the issues.

“We knew that if we play the way we can play, there would not be too many teams who would be able to stop us. Sometimes you can listen to the media or people too much, saying maybe we should be down the divisions, we never beleived that, we think we have good enouigh players to be competing at the higher levels.”

Round three was against Meath and Cavan found themselves seven points down at the break and the supporters would have been forgiven, admits Brady, for looking “down rather than up”. But the Blues turned the tables and won by the same margin and are unbeaten in three more matches since.

What changed in Páirc Tailteann?

“There was definitely no shouting and roaring,. We went in wondering how we got ourselves in that position, we were so competitive in the first two games, even though we lost. To find ourselves seven down at half-time wasn't a position we were familiar with. Terry sat us down and we all knew there were only a couple of things we needed to get right.

“Obviously we got that goal then early in the second half that set us up, Gearoid [McKiernan] stepped up, Seanie [Johnston] stepped up and the rest of the games have led on from that.

“A lot of it was confidence, we knew if we could get back in the game that we could push on and win it.”

In such a tight division including five Ulster teams, Cavan have forged a strong panel.

“At the start of the year we were looking at the amount of Ulster teams in it and straight away thinking how tight it would be, there's never too much between any of the Ulster teams. You have to get over that in your head really and believe that you're better than those boys.

“I'm lucky enough myself to have got back in. We lost Niall McDermott early in the year but we've shown the strength in depth of the squad since then, lads have come in and proved a pioint. Jack came on at the weekend and kicked two vital scores fvor us.

“There's no-one taking a back seat, everyone wants to be playing. Unfortunately everyone can't play but even the lads who aren't making ther 26 are driving the thing on. People don't see that – everyone is there for the good of Cavan football. It is great to see.”