Graham to take a few weeks to decide on future as season comes to an end

GAA news

Mickey Graham didn’t hide his frustration or upset after defeat against Down brought the curtain down on a 2023 season which at one stage seemed to promise so much.

Cavan’s early-season form tailed off and they exited the Ulster Championship and Tailteann Cups quite tamely, never leading in either match.

“Very disappointed, I felt that we had enough chances to get something out of the game. We missed a few marks, we missed a few frees early on, a couple of decisions went against us and I kind of had a feeling it was going to be one of those days,” Graham said.

“At this level you have to execute them (placed balls). We worked well to create those opportunities; at that early stage you’re trying to settle into the game. Missing them gave Down a wee bit of oxygen all the time, you were always trying to get back. I felt if we could have got it back to a draw, got a point ahead, it would have been a different game.”

Down funnelled a lot of men back and made things difficult for Cavan, as was expected.

“That’s the way they set up and that’s the way they go about their business. We had to come up with the solutions and the answers for that, at times we did. As I said, we left a good few scores behind us, I thought if we had got our noses in front it might have forced them to come out a wee bit.

“They’re very hard to break down and at times we did a lot of silly things on the ball. The boys know that themselves but look, that’s football and it was one of those days.

“If you look at the key moments there, Raymond has a free, this is inside the 45, to equalise it. Then it goes from a draw to two points up. Killian Clarke wins a great ball in the middle of the field, breaks it down, they score a goal. I don’t know where it came from.

“There were key moments in the game and when you’re chasing and the clock is against you, you have to commit forward. That’s what we did and then we got caught. There’s no point losing by two points, you might as well have a cut at it at that stage.”

Asked if he felt Cavan were hard done by on some decisions, Graham said: “Oh yeah, like there was one there in the first half, I thought we made a great turnover on the 45, he let it play on and then Ciaran Brady put in a big block and he was done for picking it up. Maybe he did.

“Now I don’t know, you can tell me better, I thought Oisin Brady received a push in the back when he was going for that goal in the first half and that was a big moment at that stage. If we had got that goal, it was a whole different ball game.

“They’re key moments in games, they either go for you or they don’t. They didn’t go for us today, that’s the reality of it.”

This was a most disappointing defeat, he agreed, but stressed that Cavan probably peaked in the league, with the prize of promotion and a possible return to the Sam Maguire.

“It is but look, it has been a long season. We threw everything into the National League to get promoted this year. Other years I would probably have not thrown everything at that, it was more about building a team towards championship but the league has become so important now for rankings.

“You look at the All-Ireland series now, the thing has been very flat because teams are still figuring out what way to approach this. If you are in Division 2 or 3, the league is probably the most important competition for you because you need to be up in the top half of Division 2 or in Division 1 to play All-Ireland football.

“I think we probably need to re-visit some things because some teams are starting to fizzle out and the intensity in games is starting to fizzle out.”

There are some positives to take from the year, he said.

“We are always trying to infuse new blood into the team because the older lads are not going to be around forever. It’s important to expose them to that. A lot of lads will get exposed next year to Division 2 football at a higher level and I think that will stand them well in the future.

“There are a great bunch of U20s coming along too. Cavan football will be here when we’re all gone so it’s important to keep blooding lads.

“Look, as I said, we got promoted, that was the first thing that we needed to achieve at the start of the year, get to Division 2. We’ve done that. To be honest with you, we were frustrated with our performance against Armagh, it wasn’t good enough, we know that, and this was a competition that we said we’d go after and we fell short.”

Asked about his own future, the Cavan Gaels man was non-committal.

“There is always emotion when the season comes to an end. You always have to let the dust settle, you re-assess things, talk to the most important shareholders in this which is the players and see where their thoughts are at. Hopefully lads don’t decide to move on and hang up the boots but that’s a decision we’ll make when we have a review meeting of how the season went in three or four weeks’ time.”