The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

Another handy one !

Will there be any retirements or are they all giving it another year ,bar obviously Galligan? McManus carrying on with Monaghan and Darren Hughes. Hughes is 37 in feb

I don’t think G Mac is either.

I think he had an operation on his knee, didn't play any club championship. He would still have something to offer and would be a big loss of he retires. Always reliable for a few scores.

Galligan in his first year as manager would need all the experienced players. But McKiernan and Reilly have given very good service.

Some talk that Murphy could be back playing for Donegal under McGuiness.

It every manger took the same attitude in regards to training as there manger there would be a lot more lads playing football in every club.

So do I. They just leave the lads to do their own weights…..

Donal Keoghan new Crosserlough manager.

Bit of a come down looking for Jim Gavin and going for Keoghan but he will bring the cash and pay the likes of Gavin to come in and do sessions.

Jim Gavin has turned down lots of County jobs since he left Dublin,and had offers of a few clubs in Dublin. He was never taking the Crosserlough job, who are losing players next year also. Stephen Smith going to Oz.

Keoghan done very well in his first spell with Castlerahan. A surprise he didn't stay on at the time to to go for 3 in a row. He returned the following year as manager and they got relegated.

Andre Quinn definitely gone, took a while to announce it so they were either working to get him back and it failed or he’s got a new job, from his Twitter:

Best wishes to everyone involved with @CavanCoBoardGaa Thankful to have had the chance to work with so many great people, especially the players. Thanks for the memories.

Down looked full of running against Cavan in the Tailtean Cup, which Cavan seemed heavy legged.

Peter Donnelly was probably the best S/C coach Cavan had

They probably got that idea through experience at intercounty management. I don't think a team winning a second tier competition using some young players is any sort of definitive proof that they're wrong.

So wait do you value experience or is youth the way forward like in Meath? Your argument is all over the shop.

Which Cavan players are you advocating for that didn't get gametime because they're not on the panel long enough? Or as usual are you just giving poorly thought out digs at management?

Good win for arva. What happened Johnny McCabe I didn’t see him named on team, if its on injury hopefully he will be back soon, it would be great if ballyhaise and gowna can do the business next week also.

And do you value debating the topic at hand?

I made a point that Cavan management have peddled a mantra that players need 12 to 18 months to be intercounty ready. I then countered this by stating that Meath made a mockery of such claims with a number of new players in their first season winning the Tailteann Cup.

You sought to devalue the status of the Tailteann Cup by calling it a second rate competition. I pointed out it’s a competition that we couldn’t win two years in a row with our most experienced team ever. We’re not exactly in a position to talk it down therefore.

What exactly is “all over the shop” about any of that? How is it a “poorly thought out” dig at management? It’s something management said that can clearly be questioned now given the team who won the Tailteann Cup and the relative inexperience of a number of their players.

And to answer your question, I think a mix of both is needed, experience and youth.

Mickey Graham obviously didn’t have much faith in youth though or he wouldn’t have been playing established players when clearly injured or not match fit, or flogging lads having them play 3 McKenna Cup games in a week in January. But sure at least we beat Armagh when they showed their interest in the comp by changing their entire team at HT.

If you want examples of players, Tiarnan Madden was dropped against Armagh for a clearly unfit Oisin Kiernan.

One of the differences this year was that management wanted a flying start in division three and to guarantee promotion, which meant less experimentation in line ups. Bear in mind that our main scoring threat from 2022 (Paddy Lynch and Gearoid) and our midfield (Galligan and James Smith) were missing for one reason or another for the first few games so it did mean having our strongest hand available to hit the ground running in Mullingar. Given that the Holla and McVeety had missed a lot of football, I was okay with them getting McKenna cup game so that we didn't start slowly in the league (granted, maybe with some balance).

Picking up similar injuries would infer a lack of preparation (muscle injuries for example) whereas a lot of what we picked up is just bad luck and inevtiable in a high contact sport.

What Hammar rightly points out is where lads were togging out when not fit- that's not S&C ,that's management deciding lads are vital that they can't be rested. Both Carolan and McVeerty picked up bad knocks at the tail end of the Longford match. From memory they played the following week against Offaly. In hindsight, we should have felt we had enough against Offaly to rest both. Then McVeety was out for a prolonged period, was in a boot but was picked to start in the league final. He wasn't near right for the Armagh match and should have been let ease his way back in and have him ready for that game. You could argue that Carolan wasn't the same player after the Longford match probably because he wasn't fully fit since then. I saw him twice in club games and he wasn't the same player- he was absolutely outstanding against Westmeath but his performances dipped later in the league, when I think he hadn't fully recovered. Credit to any player willing to play through pain and every player on that panel wants to play as much as possible.

Look, management from the sidelines (or the internet) is easy. Every Cavan fan wanted a successful league campaign and more or less everyone felt up to the first Down game that we were humming. We didn't want lads rested and when they were (Antrim) everyone felt that we lost momentum and just about got it back for the league final- but when Armagh came, we looked gassed (never mind tactics).