‘Dirty ball battle is key’ - Hyland
Interview
Jack Madden
In 2013 and 2015, a surgeon wouldn’t have squeezed a cigarette paper between Monaghan and Cavan with a pair of tweezers. The bragging rights ultimately came from the drumlins further north.
Those defeats can break the toughest skin, tear the most calloused hands, but when two Anglo-Celt Cups were to follow in each of those seasons for the Farney men, it was a familiar sting of an undying wasp for Cavan, beaten on both occasions by a point.
2013 was particularly controversial, a breakthrough star in Rory Beggan circling in search of help as Cavan rushed him in desperation at the death.
Referee Marty Duffy never blew for steps, but soon blew a defiant shrill for full-time to the relief of most and dismay of some 15,600 people in Clones.
Earlier that season, Cavan had hammered eventual league champions Monaghan in the regular round of the league in Division Three, as Martin Reilly raised the only green flag and Monaghan mustered just five points.
Terry Hyland doesn’t remember that league affair at Kingspan Breffni, though the dramatic finish in Clones is vivid as ever in his mind 13 years on:
“I remember the end of that championship match in Clones. It hinged on a poor kickout that was intercepted and a few other incidents.
“You often hear of controversial incidents where a man takes 10 or 11 steps. Beggan took 13 that day and nobody was fit to count them!”
At the time, the overriding emotion was one of hurt, one of anguish. Was there any sort of appreciation from Hyland of what the Monaghan shot stopper was to become, a man who had only made his senior debut against Sligo in that aforementioned Division Three campaign?
“Not really. These things happen, all we had hoped for was a free in and another day at it. There’s controversy in almost every game, we saw it in the Donegal-Kerry league final with Michael Murphy. That’s sport.
“At the time we didn’t pick up too much on Beggan. Kickouts weren’t nearly as important as they are now.
“I suppose it comes down to percentages. Any beaten team will have an argument in these tight games. In 2015, we felt we were on the wrong side of the new advantage rule, there was a second foul on Martin Reilly but the free was given from the first foul outside the scoring zone.
“Monaghan went on to win their two Ulster titles. We felt we were close, we were in the mix, but we knew we needed a step up for sure.”
2026 and the Drumlin Clasico is just days away again. Remarkably, that 2013 affair was a first championship derby in 12 years. Sunday will represent a sixth meeting in the 12 years that have followed.
Three Monaghan wins in a row have been followed by three Cavan wins in a row.
Neither side will reflect overly fondly on their league campaigns, leaving what looks like a fairly 50/50 game on paper. Are there many similarities with that 2013 affair then?
“It’s probably hard to judge. Back then it’s fair to say both teams were on the up. I’m not so sure you could say the same about either right now.
“Monaghan had a mini revival last year, and bounced back to Division One. This year they’ve had their injury issues and had to blood a few players, but there was an ageing process kicking in. That was going to have to happen at some stage.
“Cavan stayed in Division Two but were nearer promotion last year. I do think Monaghan will take a lot of confidence from their last performance in defeat to Donegal.”
Former Leitrim boss Hyland believes the battle around the middle is more important than the man in the number one jersey, with Gary O’Rourke having fallen out of favour.
In defeat to Derry, Ramor’s Liam Brady was once again between the posts, with Drumlane’s Ryan Connolly in reserve.
That Oak Leaf defeat could prove valuable given it’s a fixture that Cavan will hope to replicate in an Ulster semi-final, with Ciarán Meenagh’s men heavily fancied to beat Antrim on Saturday week (April 18).
They won’t get that far without winning the midfield dogfight according to their former boss:
“It’s mostly about who you’re kicking it out at. As kickouts started to develop, we started to try and implement short kick-outs.
“I had a goalie say to me: ‘It’s my job to kick it out and it’s their job to get it’.
“An awful lot now is about winning dirty ball. You look at Donegal, they’ve brought in Jason McGee as another big man. Michael Murphy dropping didn’t work out in the All-Ireland final, but it did in the league final when they had another big man with him.
“These men are six-foot-four plus, not six-foot-one or two, and they can get off the ground. You wouldn’t classify a man of 6’2 as a big man in today’s game.
“Monaghan and Cavan don’t have men of that size and they’re fairly evenly matched. Monaghan aren’t as big as other sides in Division One and maybe that’s a lot of the reason they struggled. It’s become a possession game.”
Even in an era of attacking football and new rules, Hyland feels defences have the capability to come out on top. While he noted Stephen O’Hanlon and Micheál Bannigan as having quality ‘probably slightly above most of Cavan’s inside forwards’, he did note Paddy Lynch will have a huge role to play:
“I think if both sides have their defensive set-ups right, they are capable of nullifying the opposition attack. Paddy Lynch is very dangerous if there’s clean ball kicked in early, not 50/50 ball lumped in.
“Where he can do damage is drifting outside the arc, but Cavan need to release him, they can’t have that area crowded. Just get bodies inside. The top teams are all about mobility, defenders getting forward and finishing their run out in the full-forward line.”