Galligan: 'It's all about championship'

GAA news

If there is one side who can bounce back from relegation and turn in a strong championship campaign, surely it is Cavan, who did just that last year.

That was the message from captain Raymond Galligan on a recent pre-championship conference call. The Lacken man, unsurprisingly, fielded a number of questions about Cavan’s recent relegation but he was keen to emphasise that the players have put it behind them and championship is where their focus lies.

“We’re going into the championship in the same boat as last year,” Galligan agreed.

“I suppose we can use last year as a guide to prepare for the Tyrone game. We just had to draw a line in the sand after the Wicklow game and just take the learnings that we used last year having had a disappointing league campaign as best we can.

“It was more a case of getting back up and running. We didn’t want it to end the way it did obviously but management and players, we always looked at the championship being the key. The first day out was probably the most disappointing, if we had got a draw even it probably would have been a different year as regards to the league.

“The extra few weeks is definitely a big advantage, helps a few niggly injuries as well and the break gives us extra time to reflect and work on areas that we need to improve on.

“It took a few days, definitely, to do a bit of soul-searching and see where we went wrong but we had fantastic training since, the management have a fantastic way with the players and they tried to pick the confidence back up. We had a good reaction to what was a difficult day and things have been more positive and hopefully we can keep building on that.”

Asked about the knock-out format, he said: “We can only take it on what we experienced last year. Obviously we had a fantastic season in the championship. Knock-out is all on the day, it gives the underdogs the opportunity, anything is possible on that given day. It is a good format.”

It won’t necessarily be any harder to pick things up after the most recent relegation compared to any other, Galligan insisted.

“Not really to be honest. It is disappointing and there was a lot of hurt, there’s no doubt about it, but no different from last year, we will be judged on how our championship goes in our view. Tyrone is what we are looking forward to now, we have to park what has happened in the league until next winter. It was disappointing but we really had to draw the line and look towards Tyrone. It’s a huge game and a very difficult challenge.”