Promotion looks secure but form is still an issue

GAA

And that's that - Cavan have reached the last round of the National League with promotion back to Division 3 all but secured. Barring a highly unlikely sequence of results, the Blues will finish in the top two in the table and take their place in the league final at Croke Park. So, Cavan fans, what's the problem?

Despite the five league wins, which came on the back of a big victory over All-Ireland champions Tyrone in the McKenna Cup and a good performance against Armagh, the big talking point among supporters has been the performances, which have been unconvincing of late.

Cavan ground out a tough away win against Leitrim in difficult conditions in round one and played their best football of the campaign in the first half against Wexford a week later before idling in the second.

Then came Carlow, who had lost by 23 points to Sligo, and again, the performance at home was up and down. The away game against Sligo was billed as potentially the trickiest of the seven and Tony McEntee's men were the better side with the wind in opening a five-point advantage before Cavan dug deep and, after a lucky goal, clawed it back - and the visitors played well on the home stretch to win pulling up.

With that victory in the bag, Cavan had one foot in Division 3 and were strongly fancied to defeat Tipperary at home in round five but a sub-par performance – albeit, there were a lot of chances created – saw them slip to a disappointing loss.

Suddenly, the trip to London had a slightly onerous look about it but when Cavan went 1-5 to 0-0 ahead in the first quarter, it seemed things were clicking. From there to the final whistle, though, it got worse, with the huge travelling Breffni crowd unusually subdued as London won the period between the 20th and 72nd minutes by four points and then added a penalty to force an extremely nervy finale.

Due to the ongoing GPA vs GAA stand-off over expenses, the Cavan players and management opted not to conduct post-match interviews, which may have been just as well because, despite probably securing promotion, this was a win which felt like a loss.

Waterford come calling this Saturday (Kingspan Breffni, 6pm) and manager Mickey Graham will be keen to see improvement in what will be the penultimate game before championship on April 23.

Ordinarily, Cavan followers would be buzzing after five wins from six matches but the fact is that the opposition in this division, by definition, are the lowest ranked teams in the country and a Cavan side who won the Ulster SFC just 16 months ago would be expected to dominate at the lowest level of league football.

Expectations were raised by that success and while Cavan supporters have often been accused, with some justification, of being unrealistic in what they demand from the team, given the experience and quality of the current Cavan players, it’s not unreasonable for followers to expect a higher level of performance.

It should be noted too that while the standard in Division 4 is miles off the top teams, very few sides have cruised through it; only Derry, in 2019, have gone through the seven games without dropping points since the league went to a linear four-tier system 15 years ago.

Regardless, anything less than an impressive win against Waterford, lowest ranked of the 33 teams in the country and coming off five successive losses, on Saturday would have alarm bells ringing.

However, getting out of the basement division was the prerogative and that should now be achieved and if all goes to plan, Cavan would go to Croke Park for the league final with a chance to possibly set the record straight against Tipperary (should the Munster side defeat London this weekend, which is not a given) and pick up a trophy, which could give the camp a timely boost and change the gloomy mood music among supporters.

The decision to move the Ulster SFC quarter-final against Antrim on April 23 away from Corrigan Park due to capacity issues, which saw Cavan on the receiving end of a lot of flak, was effectively reversed by the Ulster Council last week when they confirmed the fixture for the Whiterock Road venue.

A source in Cavan county board stated that the issue was “blown out of proportion” and that Cavan simply raised concerns about capacity and were never going to challenge any fixture decision.

That is a challenge for another day but the next two weekends – which provide an opportunity to find form and land silverware, despite all of the negativity at present - could have a major say in how it will go.