Number of injury worries for Graham ahead of return
GAA news
After a long hiatus, Cavan return to action against Fermanagh in Brewster Park this Saturday (throw-in, 7pm) with a sense of going into the unknown.
After six months on the sidelines and with no pre-season competitions, Cavan manager Mickey Graham admitted that Cavan won’t know where they are at until they take the field. “It’s great to be back, great to be back in that environment again amongst the players and enjoying what we’re doing. It’s six months now since the Dublin game so a lot of time has passed and it’s just great to get back on the football field. And the fact that it’s coming into the summer months now makes it even better again,” Graham told the Anglo-Celt.
“There’s no denying it, it’s difficult. You’d like to think that things might be going well in training but you won’t know where you’re at until you get into the thick of the matches.
“We’ll find out a lot about ourselves this weekend against Fermanagh as to where we’re at and we’ll be hoping after that that we will start improving game by game. It’s unknown territory in a sense, it’s a bit unusual that you wouldn’t have five or six matches under your belt going into competitive competition but look, we could make excuses or dress it up whatever way we want but we will learn a lot about ourselves this weekend and hopefully we’ll be in a good place.
“It can be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes, things could be going fierce well in training and all of a sudden you go out on to the field and you have a nightmare. And it can happen the opposite way too, training might not be going as well and you could be down a few bodies and all of a sudden you go out and put in a big performance.
“This time around we have no base level of form going into these games so it is going to be interesting to see how we cope with that intensity having not played a competitive match since the Dublin game.”
Injury to Brady
Graham must plan without goalkeeper Liam Brady from Ramor United, who picked up a serious quad injury and will be out for several months.
“Liam picked up a long term injury, hopefully he can get sorted and get back for the club later on in the season,” said Graham, who confirmed that Ballyhaise’s Gary O’Rourke has been drafted in to replace the Ramor man.
“We have a few knocks which you’d expect after a long lay-off from contact training, we’ll not know who’s available until the weekend so we have to give them right up until the last minute to be honest.
“We have no serious injuries but a few niggles and if they don’t clear up in time, we have to be thinking of the bigger picture as well.”
Cavan had a run out against Roscommon in a challenge game last weekend.
“It was just to blow away the cobwebs and get up to speed as regards match fitness and try and implement a few things and remind ourselves what football is like again.
“We wouldn’t take too much out of it, it was just about getting 70 minutes under our belts.
The new players on the panel are unlikely to feature just yet, he said.
“It will probably be further down the line. As I said, a few lads have knocks, especially newer lads who have come into the squad. They are still getting conditioned to the environment but I’d be hoping we’ll be able to give game time to a few of the newer lads as the league goes on.”
The Erne men are expected to pose a stern test.
“They probably have a head start on us as regards games, they probably have four or five matches under their belts now. It’s a local derby, even back in my playing days there was never much between us. It’s in Brewster Park where they have a great record.
“They’ll coming out looking to get off to a good start, they’ll probably be defensive and they’ll be aggressive and they’ll make life difficult. We just have to focus on ourselves and make sure that we try to implement our game and try cut out mistakes, which is going to be difficult because we haven’t had much game time.
“That’s the big challenge for us, not to give the ball away too easily and make sure we’re fully tuned in.”