Four changes to Cavan starting side for Mayo clash
GAA news
There are four late changes to the Cavan team who will take on Mayo in the first round of the All-Ireland SFC today at MacHale Park, Castlebar (2.30pm).
Into the side come Liam Brady, Killian Brady, Barry Donnelly and Sean McEvoy; making way are Gary O'Rourke, Jason McLoughlin, Killian Clarke and Cian Madden.
The starting teams are as follows:
Cavan: L Brady, Cian Reilly, B O’Connell, N Carolan, K Brady, C Brady, P Faulkner, B Donnelly, E Crowe, G Smith, D McVeety, O Kiernan, Cormac O’Reilly, R Donohoe, S McEvoy
Mayo: C Reape, J Coyne, D McHugh, D Thornton, S Callinan, D McBrien, E Hession, S Coen, M Ruane, D Neary, J Carney, J Flynn, A O’Shea, D McHale, R O’Donoghue
Speaking to the Anglo-Celt this week, Cavan manager Raymond Galligan was bullish about his side's chances.
"We look at Mayo, a really good team, but most importantly we have to make sure we bring our very best performance and see where it takes us," he said.
Cavan are where they want to be, in the top tier, Galligan stated.
“I think our group of players are very ambitious and very keen to compete at this level. We’ve had lots of opportunities down in the lower divisions and the Tailteann Cup where we were probably playing teams of lower quality. This is where we want to be, in the All-Ireland series and playing against the best teams.
“All we can do is perform against who’s in front of us. We look at our group with real optimism and I think it’s very important for us to make a step and get a result. We could easily look around at some other groups and think they might have been more favourable, but at the end of the day for us, to get into preliminary quarter-finals and quarter-finals, you’re going to have to beat a top Division 1 team.
“That’s obviously our goal, nobody wants to just compete, everybody wants to win games. I think to be fair we have a bit more depth now than last year in different areas and we’d be confident we’re going to put in a good performance. And getting a result could be that step that we’re just kind of looking for over the last two seasons.
“We’ve got a real good buy-in over the last couple of weeks. Having the likes of Cormac O’Reilly, Oisin Brady, Paddy Lynch, who bring that scoring threat, is a huge addition to our team and an area where we didn’t have the same depth and experience before and it certainly gives us great confidence going in that hopefully we’ll get scoring opportunities and we’ll have the right men in those positions to take them.”
Cavan play Donegal on Sunday June 1 in round two at Kingspan Breffni and Tyrone at a neutral venue two weeks later.