McCabe to keep numbers tighter on senior panel as he seeks to build competitive edge

Gaelic games

New Cavan senior football manager Dermot McCabe intends to keep the number of players on his senior panel lower than has been the case in the past.

The Gowna clubman believes that a tighter panel means that every player is in with a stronger chance of getting game time and, as such, the competitive nature of the group will be heightened.

“I want everyone to feel that they have an opportunity to play on Sunday. I want that our trainings are competitive. I want everything to be competitive in how we do our work, how we do our work in the gym… and I want competitive people,” McCabe told the Anglo-Celt.

“I don't want someone that's happy to be on a county panel and getting number 25, not that I think we have any of those players, but that's the way that I would work, that you work hard.”

McCabe accepted that injuries are always inevitable but he feels that U20s can be promoted to the senior panel to boost numbers if needed, which would also allow those players to pick up valuable experience.

“I know Chris (Conroy, U20 manager) is talking about having a slightly bigger panel. And therefore, if we needed players, or additional players, that we would maybe gain access to them for the occasional training session to give them the opportunity,” McCabe said.

“So my preference would be, you know, 32 rather than 42 of a panel, so everyone feels they have an opportunity.”

In a wide-ranging interview with this newspaper, which will be included in a special end-of-year GAA review supplement in next week’s print edition, McCabe touched on his over-riding approach to the role. Asked about why success has been sporadic for Cavan over recent decades, he intimated that Cavan teams and supporters should be ambitious and resist the temptation to talk themselves down.

“I would say, probably collectively, and probably since I was a player, I would think maybe Cavan don't look at themselves in a positive manner. I would think that, ‘oh, geez, we're playing them’ would be the approach, or just, ‘I don't know if we'll be able to beat them’, whereas I would think a lot of counties that maybe I would feel we're stronger than don't have those thoughts and notions.

“I think Cavan have a huge football tradition. We won't be going through the history, but we'll be trying to build in here that we've covered a lot of this stuff. We'll have covered it. We'll be in physically good condition, and we'll be competitive people. And there's no reason why we can't compete against anyone.

“I'm not talking about psychology (but) it's more a mental thing, we sit into this sort of tradition, of this is where we're at, and we let others dictate to us. I wouldn't believe that we are (weak), I would feel we have very strong players. We have very good facilities, and we need to compete as strongly as we can.”

Asked if it irritated him when Cavan are dismissed as a weaker footballing county, he stated: “I wouldn't like anyone looking down on Cavan as a GAA county. I wouldn't like anyone looking down to think that we are inferior or an inferior team.”

See next week’s print issue for the full interview with Dermot McCabe.