The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

You cant use score differences unless the teams level have each played the same teams (highly unlikely). That's not a fair system otherwise and you might as well toss a coin as do score difference as it will all be in the luck of who you drew against. One of the big downsides of this championship set up is that fact. I am afraid I don't see any other fair way to separate level teams other than a play off but that should have been accounted for in the master calendar instead of asking teams to play on midweek

You could be right but that isn't right and fair if that was the case. That's just my opinion on it. If both teams had previously played each other then the head to head between them is the fairest way. After that I think it has to be a play off.

Systems often need to be tweaked as time goes on and anamolies arise.

Some intercounty movement this evening. Mickey Harte to Derry it appears and Mickey Graham has joined Andy Moran in Leitrim.

Mickey said a few times in interviews that the players weren’t following what was set out or planned. This year in the League we started out playing attacking football but the wheels came off after the losses to Antrim & Fermanagh.

Mattie McGleenan also came in 2017 and said he would play attacking football but then reverted to a defensive structure so it’ll be interesting to see if Galligan follows through on what he says.

At least they are trying to win on the field to get promoted out of Junior unlike what Crosserlough did when they were not good enough to get out of intermediate a few years ago.

Its easy stuff to say, I am pretty sure Graham said the same when he took over. However, the reality hits when you are faced with 15 men behind the ball and them just urging you to kick it into them so that they can counter attack at pace.

There will be teams in Division 2 next year who will likely have lots behind the ball. Fermanagh and Donegal. Louth would have been another, but now looking for a new manager.

The League is played in the depths of winter January and February won't be all pretty.

I totally agree, however there are time you get held up on a counter and teams get reset and then you are faced by 15 players in their own half. Its not so easy then to attack with pace, rather patience is needed. All I am saying is it is not easy to always have defense splitting attacks in modern football.

Our approach seems to have been to press high in the middle 3rd with a view to turn over our opposition there and try to attack then before they get set defensively. We then often leave our Full Back line man to man. It seems to me in many games we were just not very effective at doing turn overs up the field and then suffered the double whammy of being isolated in the Full Back line. Not sure Cavan have the players to do what Graham was trying to do. The tactics need a re-look thats for sure.

Down aren't a big team so wasn't there size that would have been the difference. Cavan had bigger players around the middle. They had lots of pace, while Cavan were slow as a snail moving the ball

Laragh go seven points up and score three goals against Ramor yet still can’t get over the line. They may just give up. Ramor will walk the replay.

An exciting enough game but low on quality with alot of unforced errors.

Cavan’s probable new number 1 badly caught out for the third Laragh goal.

Ah the old blame county board raises its head. Do you think they are making a killing off a senior QF game?

A replay is always preferable to me where the schedule allows it. These are amateurs. The way the game is gone they are playing the guts of 70 minutes at a high intensity and with hits that are very hard. Last nights game had no quarter given by either side.

Crosserlough went to a replay against Castlerahan a few years back and it wasn’t pretty. Players, amongst some of the fittest in the county, barely able to walk off the pitch post game.

Give them another day out to decide it.

That’s as extreme an example as you can get.

My worry is not for the crowd and what they want. It’s for player welfare.

We now have 3 replays from this weekend anyway so we’ll see if they are flat when played. Somehow I doubt they will be with the clubs involved.

When exactly did the Tyrone championship become the marker for everything in Cavan? Tyrone have as poor a record in the Ulster club championship as we do so not sure why they would be the benchmark. Maybe quote another county with a better success rate like Down if you want to use an example.

The lads on WAC made a good point when it was said that the standard of refereeing is too poor to have a straight knock out championship like Tyrone.

Players prefer games. It’s better to let the teams go at it again next weekend than “piling” an extra 20 minutes onto already tired bodies.

Castlerahan in 2020 went to extra time in their QF versus Lavey and then their SF against Crosserlough a week later. You ask them lads how two games like that in seven days affected them.

The body of an amateur Gaelic footballer is used to 60 to 70 minutes of football, in extra time you see lads going down all over the place because it is pushing lads to the limits.

If you remember, Cavan got a lot of media praise in Covid times that our senior final of 2020 did go to a replay.

A lot of the referees are not fit enough to keep up with play. It may be a thankless job but, at the end of the day, they are the ones getting at least €50, even for a juvenile game, to be there. The least they could do is stay in shape for the role.

The WAC point was that the standard of refereeing could result in one poor decision costing a hard working team their whole championship season in a knock out championship.