The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

Meath absolutely annihilating Wexford and Limerick now in control against Laois so no surprises yet in the other QFs.

Anyone know which goals we are kicking into?

Down deserving winners . Cavan were going through the motions at times, very little intensity. Paddy Lynch was obviously a loss and James Smith but been you'd expect more on home turf. Liam Kerr was excellent for Down. Oisin Brady kicked some good scores in first half but made a bad mistake in first half which resulted in a Down score. Down defended very well.

Didn't get to see it but listened to it on northern sound

No big surprise though I thought we might have put in a little effort

Down sounded like a much better organised outfit

I'll be expecting an announcement fairly soon and probably the last time we'll see a few of those lads in cavan jerseys, some great servants

Galligan, gunner, McKiernan, Marty reilly, moynagh will retire now surely, Oisin Kieran , killian clarke both 30 might not be to far behind them.

Faulkner, Gerry smith, Mcloughlin, coming up behind them.

james smith busy with his cabinet making, paddy lynch seemingly done the cruciate.

Could be 10 of todays team gone from panel next year.

Hardly any 20 years old coming through.

Things are bad, Bleak future ahead for the next while me thinks hi.

Suppose to have been the hamstring which ruled Lynch out.

Underage Cavan have been poor for a good while. They made the Ulster u20 final last year, but hammered by Down the year before and a poor showing against Monaghan this year,

Down U20s hammered Cavan in 2021 . A good few would have been involved today

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2021/0709/1234196-down-u20s-signal-intent-in-blitzing-cavan/

County board will probably give the gig to Donohoe, & he will bring in Paul Fitz on the ticket, no stopping Cavan then with his knowledge 🙄

Maybe himself and j mac should put their name in the hat the pair of gobsh1tes

Well that was a very tough watch yesterday. A few thoughts.

• Down executed their game plan perfectly. They are an average enough team but have been well coached to defend aggressively in numbers and break with pace. They did that very well yesterday and were full value for the win.
• I don't know what our game plan was to counter above. Its not like Down came with something unexpected. I could not make head nor tail out of it. McKiernan into FF for first 15 minutes and not one ball put into him. A half arsed press on the Down kick out which yielded maybe 1 turnover in the 1st half, exactly like in the league game. Then we let them have quite a lot of short kick outs, setting up some imaginary line of defence on their 45 which Down walked through at their ease and which in turn left our full back line very isolated. In fact, bar intercepting a couple of misplaced hand passes, did we actually turn Down over in the tackle once in the whole game? So basically we've no idea how to attack and conceded 1-17 against the most defensive team in Ireland. Oh and 4 points down, 37 minutes gone sub in Caoimhin McGovern - what is the point in that? That's on the management.
• Our forwards are afraid to have a go and lack confidence, bar Oisin Brady who in fairness took shots on. Too afraid of what the bloody stats say versus winning the game - the only stat that really matters. Then we have the sight of forwards turning down shots only to pass the ball to the Full Back or even the keeper to have shots from 45 meters out. A serious lack of football intelligence. Faulkner got 2 points but took on 2/3 really idiotic shots.
• We couldn't get level. As bad as we played we got back to 1 point on a number of occassions and incredibly stood off their resulting kick out and let them saunter up the field to go 2 ahead. I couldn't believe it. Who is making those calls or is it some pre-determined strategy when you get back to 1 stand off? It actually cost us the game.
• As someone said above, we hear a lot about our S&C and how wonderful it is yet have you ever seen a panel with such an amount of injuries? A lot of lads on the field did not look championship fit too. Either S&C isnt right or lads arent doing the programs.
• If I were to have one full time employee in the county in would be a sports psychologist. We are mentally very weak at all levels. Brutal defeats this year for our U20s (threw game away against Monaghan), Minors (threw away a big lead) and now seniors suffered 2 really poor home defeats.

I had been looking forward to a Meath Cavan final. It would have been good for the Tailteann competition to have a storied rivalry contest the final. But Cavan were very, very ordinary yesterday.

From the outside, it does look like a raft of retirements will happen in Cavan now, correct? Next years team will be largely unknown you'd expect- better than asking more of the same from the same few veterans however.

Yeah that was desperate. Summed up the whole lethargic display. Think McKiernan missed the free then if I’m not mistaken.

The thing is we’ve a better team and better players than Meath. Meath, though, could win the Tailteann because there are days when they elevate themselves to above their actual level. We don’t seem to be able to do that unfortunately,

It’s very disappointing. I’ve said for a while now I don’t think the camp mood looked in order after the Armagh game & I stick by that.

We passed sideways, backwards and eventually got scores after maybe 5 minutes yesterday. Then you’d watch as Down waltzed down the pitch without a glove laid on them and slotted over.

I am not sure we will see a mass exodus. I felt that the Gunner interview was a goodbye note. I think he needed to be convinced to come back in and that sounded like a horrendous injury he got. Could have done with his intensity in the Armagh game. I thought Martin Reilly would sign off last year. I still think McKiernan could do a job at inter county level at full forward but that would require playing him there and playing the ball into him.

But in terms of our age profile, not many of the lads you mentioned above are going to improve at this stage. They've given a lot of service and could / should be part of the team for next year.

Even though i think it's time for change in management, there's a lot of younger players who can backbone that team for a good while: Paddy Lynch, Oisin Brady, the two Maddens, Carolan, Cian Reilly. You would hope James Smith is back next year as well.

Donegal with a makeshift management beat Monaghan at the weekend. Mickey Graham would have been one of the longest serving Inter County manager after Colm Collins and McGeeney. His experience was an advantage in Division 3 this year where thew was a few rookie managers. But the championship performances been very poor.