The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

shanemcgerts

That is a sickener, had it and all

celt262

Fitness seemed to be a problem there was alot of lads cramping the last 10 minutes.

ipitydafool

Was holla injured, why take off your captain, in modern game 6/7 point leads can get wiped out so quickly, game was still no way over at the time.

tazman06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124178908#Comment_124178908

Yeah he had a knock of sorts

tazman06

That's sick. Never been as sick after a game for a while. Gave all first 60, but legs just went. Hometown ref. Most calls went their way. 3 points first half for them were off bad calls. Last 2 pointer not a free, was a good tackle attempt. He got caught up by the big crowd coming in. Still proud of what the lads did, play like this and there will be better days

Naughty_Skelator

Absolutely sickening way to lose it. First 15-20 minutes of second half was some of the best football we’ve played in a long time but we completely collapsed in last 10 minutes..

More thoughts and rants after 4 hour trip home,

Some real positives but also unfortunately some serious negatives about that performance.

Naughty_Skelator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124178955#Comment_124178955

That black card for Ryan Brady was a disgraceful decision, he had been clearly fouled , pushed in the back beforehand and nothing..

quidel7

Looking forward to reading some decent analysis of the game later when ye get up the road. Hopefully the positives outweigh the negatives.

tazman06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124178979#Comment_124178979

Exactly this, was our free but we got punished

Cavan_King

There’s no point hiding behind a hard luck story about the ref. You are always going to get that in an away game, particularly with a large crowd coming in for the hurling game.

Cormac O’Reilly was getting strong praise in here during the week. He was left on the bench while Daragh Lovett came on. I know who I’d prefer in a scrappy game where we needed to see it out.

Does Ryan Donohoe take frees for Gowna? I thought he was only on 45s for them. Gaelic Statsman has stats from the game up - our conversion rate on frees was 3 from 6, 50%. That’s terrible.

large_palette

We had plenty of time to shore things up at the back when Cork were missing shots but it seemed beyond us. Hard to tell with radio commentary but it sounds like conditioning may have let us down. Not too interested in blaming the referee and us away from home. You factor it in. I hope we don't rue that one down the line.

Naughty_Skelator

Positives for me

Dara McVeety was unplayable today, he gave a performance for the ages, Absolutely brilliant. Holla wasn’t far behind.Oisin Brady was also very good playing a much deeper play making role.

Both teams played a running game rather than kicked much ball into the forward line,

It was encouraging to see Tiernan Madden,Conor Brady Gerry Smith,Holla McVeety and Niall Carolan(2nd half) all taking on their men and skinning them throughout the game.. we worked some really good scores and the Cork back line couldn’t handle it at all.

Id be very optimistic about the forwards adding an ever sharper Paddy Lynch and a fit Cormac O Reilly to this mix too.

Midfield, we won 5/4 in terms of clean catches.. Ciaran Brady made two real good fetches in the first half, but the Positioning of Gearoid at centre forward and out of range for Liam Brady’s kick outs during this period was strange, Cork started to cop onto the fact that we only had one target after a while.

Brady did struggle for speed against Sean Walsh the number 9, as good as he is in the air, he needs to offer more in general play.

Gearoid moved to midfield and dominated for the first 15/20 minutes of 2nd half,caught 3 clean plus kicked a fantastic point from play. We have to have more options for kick outs in the middle 8 going forward especially against a physically formidable Meath team next week.

Negatives

The passiveness of our play when not in possession was shocking. We didn’t lay a hand on Cork all day, The difference in how easily Cork were allowed to bring the ball out of defence compared to us, was night and day…I think that’s what caused the collapse in the last 10 minutes, we were out on our feet as we had to work so much harder

There was no press, we didn’t even get tight when we were defending the arc, they were allowed free shots with little to no pressure all day. They scored 0-24, they could have put 0-30 on the scoreline only they were so wasteful.

I’m as pessimistic on our defensive performance as I am optimistic on our attacking performance, it was genuinely awful today, if we can’t shore it up we will have another year of conceding 20-30 points every game.

large_palette

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124180477#Comment_124180477

Great report, thanks. We seemed to be quite deep in our defensive arc going by the tv highlights.

tazman06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124179077#Comment_124179077

Your bee in your bonnet on Cormac O'Reilly is getting really weird at this stage

celt262

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124181515#Comment_124181515

I think he is saying he would have prefered to see Cormac to come on instead of Lovett. A better ball winner probably would have been more benifical.

tazman06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124181628#Comment_124181628

It's his longer term view that I meant.

And yeah I'd agree, but he had a niggle it seems, and maybe a risk to play both him and Lynch 2nd half if both had concerns. I'd have chanced him though

mogue77

is Evan Crowe injured?

tazman06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124181981#Comment_124181981

Word was he had a knock, but either way he's still involved with Sigerson so not available with that

Cavan_King

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124181638#Comment_124181638

What longer term view is this? Or ‘’bee in my bonnet”? It was my opinion he hasn’t done enough in the six years since his county debut to hold down a starting position - and I was bringing this up in response to the opinion of another. Others here disagreed. Discussion over.

He’s done more though than Daragh Lovett and he’d certainly be a player I’d prefer in a scrappy game. Hence my new point.

baconsarnie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124178955#Comment_124178955

As i was walking out of Parc Ui Chaoimh i was trying to think when was the last time I was as sickened leaving a Cavan game. Was pretty annoyed in 2022 when we went toe to toe with Donegal and got sucker punched by those 2 late goals. I think this was worse in that with ten minutes to go, having managed the black card I felt Cork had nothing left and the game was ours. Soul destroying.

In retrospect that black card cost us dearly. We emptied the tank managing that and we were out on our feet from that point. Probably shows how light we are on the bench, but thought subs could have been made eariler. Easy to say from the North Stand- it looked like we were dominating.

The influx of Cork hurling fans did make a difference. It was like being at a wake in the second half until about 10 minutes to go.

thesultan

what’s after happening to madden??

baconsarnie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124180477#Comment_124180477

Have to feel for McVeety. Played one of his finest performances in blue and still somehow end up on the losing team. Brady from Cork who was marking him will have nightmares about him for the rest of his life! He was as you say unplayable.

I thought that was Conor Brady's best performance for Cavan. He took on Cork players and burned them with ease. Great run to set up McVeety for the opener but he did it time and time again from short kick outs. Brilliant performance.

Great call from management to have Oisin Brady further out the field. He has some engine on him and he carried a lot of ball. Small margins but sometimes he carried the ball into traffic and got caught, but he was brave and set the tempo out the field to take on his man. That positional switch worked well.

I thought we were very, very loose defensively in the first half but upped our intensity for the 3rd quarter. Dodgy black card decision definitely meant we were on our feet after that.

Hard not to feel that a fully fit free taker was badly missing from that performance. And at least 4 careless turnovers where we were either called for overcarrying or playing hospital passes when Cork pushed up.

I was absolutely convinced we would win heading down- I figured we would be well up for this. With 10 minutes to go I was thinking this was another great away (like Castlebar last year) where we got to see something huge in terms of performance.

There's lots of positives to pick from that, and hopefully a bit more from the bench next Sunday.

Assuming Breffni is playable- that's a sight of rain in Dublin in the last 24 hours, was it as bad back home?

Cavan_King

Whole country is being hit with the rain. Club pitches closing all over the county. Listening to the radio, they are expecting more rain too.

baconsarnie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124185434#Comment_124185434

It's absolutely cat up here. We've been adivsed one of our pitches we use for underage games won't be playable for weeks.

diesel druggie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124184067#Comment_124184067

Conor Madden as fsr as I can see is not on the panel this year Presuming he opted out.

Dickie10

any word on breffni park being playable Sunday. Meath making a lot of references to not winning there v cavan in 61 years , I’d say there trying to guard against complacency

Bduff1

Do we have a backup ground? I know Monaghan have Blayney and Inniskeen. Is Kingscourt the next best after Breffni? Could that even be used?

Cavan_King

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124187633#Comment_124187633

Kingscourt & Cootehill are county grounds I believe.

celt262

Cootehill would need a fortune spent on it to get it up to scratch it wouldnt be a county ground.

Cavan_King

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124188445#Comment_124188445

The Drumlane vs Killinkere junior final was played there not so long ago because my understanding is it’s a designated county ground. The stand is certainly big enough. Runs the full length of the pitch and covered.