A lot done, more to do, says Mannion

Hurling

Kevin Óg Carney

In the absence of Cavan boss Ollie Bellew, his wing-man, Galwayman Tomás Mannion, was ready, willing and able to field questions from the media after Cavan’s comfortable 10 point victory last Saturday evening at Kingspan Breffni.

Described recently by none other than team-manager Bellew as the “main man” within the Cavan think-tank, Mannion has also been described by those in his circle as a “safe pair of hands”.

So, despite, his adopted county racking up a third victory from as many outings in this year’s Lory Meagher Cup and the promptings of the scribblers, the bold Mannion wasn’t prepared to predict a fourth victory on the trot next time out away to Longford on May 10th.

“We have six points right now and we are where we want to be but it’s important that we keep focussed and so we’ll look no further than the next game down the line which is against Longford,” Mannion declared.

“We have a couple of weeks to work on things in training before we take on Longford which is good.

“I know they (Longford) drew with Leitrim which makes things all the more interesting because we have to play both teams yet and they will be the two biggest battles of the season for us which is understandable given that we’re at the business end of the campaign at this stage.”

Cavan cut a superior look from the get-go and a 0-6 to 0-1 lead inside the opening 10 minutes provided a good platform to build upon. But Mannion wasn't that impressed:

“We weren't at it in the first half,” Mannion said despite the fact his side led by 1-13 to 1-8 at half-time.

“We started okay but we had an awful lot of wides which allowed them to get off the hook at different stages.

“And we didn’t cut completely clear of them because of those wides and then when we got our first goal (19) we should have pushed on but didn’t.

“Then soon afterwards they converted their penalty (26) which left just five (points) in it and that was still the gap at half-time which was nothing for us to celebrate really.

“We weren’t necessarily in any kind of trouble at the half-way stage but we did a bit of straight talking between us, the players and me, in the dressing-room about using the ball better and bringing more energy to the game and that seemed to work ‘cause in the first half Lancashire played an extra-man, used a sweeper and we kept playing the ball long into his hands but we sorted that out for the second half which was good."

After hitting 11 wides in the first half it wasn’t until the 61st minute that Cavan recorded their opening wide after the restart (just one of two second half wides) which pleased Mannion.

“Yeah, we were more efficient and careful with our shooting in the second half and that’s something which we helped to engineer with our talk at half-time.

“In the second half we did better at getting the ball to the player in the best position; we did better at getting our running game going.

“We all agreed in our half-time talk that there was no point in shooting from crazy positions. We knew that we had to hit the man best placed with the ball and that’s what we did in the second half and it paid off with our second goal proof of that with us putting together four or five passes up the field before finding the net. That's our game.”

And the way ahead ‘till the trip to Longford in the penultimate round of the competition?

“We are always looking for perfection but we are not happy with a lot of things that have been happening in the past few weeks and today again.

But, having said that, we said to the lads that we’re not expecting to steamroll any team.

“Lancashire did their homework and they are good hurlers; just maybe not as well conditioned as we are ‘cause we are hom- based.

“We emphasised to the lads that they’re not going to get loads of time on the ball the further we go in the competition and I felt they maybe thought it was a bit easy in the first half and that they were taking an extra touch.

“As the second half wore on though, we were seeing the man running off the shoulder and breaking the line and that’s the sort of way we want to play, with high intensity and over the next while we’ll be reminding the lads of the need for us to dictate the pace of the game and impose ourselves for the full 70 minutes on the opposition.”