The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

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.

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.

second half of League final was decent but Fermanagh were probably fortunate enough to be League final. Late goals against Down and Antrim and beating Cavan who had been promoted.

Fermanagh were very poor in the Tailtean Cup. Drawing at home to Wexford and losing at home to Laois.

Westmeath showed in the All Ireland series they're a good team. Didn't find any momentum in the League

Cavan have had the upper hand over Down for a while, but this Cavan team is in decline. Down won Ulster U20 Championships in 21 and this year. Kilcoo won an All Ireland Club last year. Its probaly the first time in a long time where a lot of the Kilcoo players are commiting to the County panel,with a Kilcoo man over the team.

Last year Down were in disarray with James McCartan leaving and then being persuaded back to stay on for the championship. A few players were giving interviews about not wanting to be involved in the Tailtean Cup. Conor Laverty has them united

I

McGleenan spell wasn't great but it was either him or Banty as alternatives. A lot of other candidates had turned Cavan down. Paul Curran, Anthony Cunningham. A bit surprising at the time as Cavan had a settled team and were going to be playing Division 1 in 2017.

The job would look less attractive now.

Based on 2019/ 2020 (and despite the Wicklow game), I was all on for management staying put last year. Division four was just about getting back out and the performance against Donegal had me thinking we were on the right track (we had a cut, played great stuff in spells, had a defensive shape and got some unlucky calls). I was on the fence after the dismal "performance" against Westmeath.

Felt that that early league performances showed we had turned a corner, but I was sure after the Armagh game that the management needs to change (and even more so after the Down game). Here's most people's list of grievances: zero intensity in big games, no defensive shape at all over the last two years, picking players for big games who clearly aren't fit, naming McKiernan at full forward and no plan to utliise him, no strategy on opposition kick out, stagnant risk averse tactics in key games. All of that falls on management.

Not sure who is out there either on the county scene or otherwise. McConville? It was close to impossible not to qualify out of the group stage in the Tailteann yet he managed to do that with Wicklow- in the handiest group as well. Great on a podcast, not a great manager for me.

I was thinking about the injuries this year and whilst it's not an excuse for the Armagh or Down "performances" either we have been incredibly unlucky this year or something isn't right with the training programmes. There's always going to be bad luck and clearly some of the injuries lads got reflect that but think about the whole year the mantra was "lads are a couple of weeks away, lads chomping at the bit" and yet we were down to the bare bones for Saturday.

Over the last 6 months we've had the following out for prolonged periods: Gearoid, McVeery, Martin Reilly, the Gunner, Jason, Gerry Smith, James Smith, Paddy Lynch, Conor Madden, Conor Brady, Oisin Brady, Cian Reilly, Conor Smith, Jack McKenna, David Brady. The last four on that list are on the fringes of the team but tidy squad players, but you could argue that the other names are starters when fit (or in the case of Martin, definite impact sub). It's mad that you think that we probably never lined out our strongest 15 once this year (i thought the team named versus Armagh was close to it, but we all know that there was at least four players not near fit that day).

Would i be right in thinking that only Ray, Killian Clarke, the Holla and the two Maddens as being the only players who didn't miss games due to injury this year?

Antrim were the better team in the first half. Jordan Morris goal in the second half knocked them back and Meath then went 8 up but they came well and with a bit of composure could have got a draw at the end

Down were ruthless, 8 goals and missed 3 or 4 other chances. Probaly didn't need to keep going for goal

WAC tweeting does Down's win and performance change the view on Cavan's year? Talk about clutching at straws

They'll have a podcast saying how unlucky Cavan were now

I think it's called clickbait. Social media is all about generating interaction and that is usually done by trying to generate a meaningless "debate". I've read the tweet and it's clearly there for a reaction and it has gotten some. Clearly no one thinks that Down hockeying Laois somehow absolves Cavan of that "performance".

Anyone who listens to WAC know that they're not singing the praises of the recent performances and Paul Fitz more or less said that the Armagh game signaled the end of a lot of the panel and possibly management.