The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

It is a shambles, but let's be honest: this is chickens coming home to roost.

In any other walk of life, someone in a paid role who not only wasn't performing for 10 years would have serious questions asked. Not only that, someone in a paid role who managed to undo much of the good work that has got us into this position.

It is going to be a perfect storm in the next twelve months and in a perverse way, I am delighted that McCabe is manager as we are going to get an awful lot of people asking why our county senior team is in a bad way.

Great point on the lads being subbed. Especially Clarke, who did really well against Kildare and was no worse than anyone on Saturday. Can't be great for your confidence.

Going on what was said on the WAC podcast this week it goes even further than that for county board, they said it suggested by them that a representative from County board would go to the editor of the Anglo Celt and that they direct the sports editor to only have complementary coverage of county team and that if Northern Sound wanted interviews again with our supreme leader then Damien Donohoe needed to be removed from the commentary team. That is unbelievable if true and Donald Trump type stuff. Clubs need to grow a backbone, they send in vast amounts of money every year to Breifne for the running of everything, there has to be some level of accountability for what is going on. 100% agree, people need to vote with their feet and wallets on this.

The only thing that will change anything now is the clubs grow a back bone or a player revolt.

If he was got rid of from the Senior Manager position it will solve feck all though the damage is done with the development squads and quality of player coming out of them and it will be near impossible to get him out of there.

Yes but if the clubs come together and go with a united front they are more powerful than the county board and that is what needs to happen. For the good of football. That Podcast was truly shocking stuff.

IMO he needs to be moved on from his position as Gowna Development Manager. It’s very difficult in this country to sack someone but you can move an employee into a different role.

Also, why did you state Liam Brady had no involvement in new underage structure?

WAC stated he did and I also was told Ramor were a club hugely in favour because of his involvement.

I was at coaching and games meeting in the gallery room in Breffini 4 or 5 weeks ago and the Bull and all the coaches including Brady were there. The chat came up about the proposed structures and they said that they were asked for an opinion on them and gave their input but had no say in how it was going to be ran. They said they wanted to keep U12 under there remit and have small sided go games for that group. If Liam Brady had alot of input into it U12 would have stayed as go games as the boss gets what he wants.

Unless they were telling lies but at the forum on it they did say that coaching and games were met in a similar forum as the clubs.

Hopefully the podcast and the celt go to town on him. I'm sure we are all hearing stuff leaking out from the panel and more importantly why certain lads aren't on it.

My biggest worry is we do actually have a decent side, some good young fellas coming through, (not as much as we should) but will they want to play for this manager ? Get roared at for 70 minutes, god only knows what he is like in the training.

Yes I did notice alot of players still u16 on it but they still technically first year of minor which cos of the odd age of minor now sometimes feel different than before in Cavan. Of those though the likes of Jack Forde, Senan Graham and Zack Byrne are all excellent players particularly in attack, all of them winning a Corn na nOg with St Pats in 2024.

Looks a fair turnover from last year's U16 Gerry Reilly squad though Jay Graham and Jake Brady both injured at the time as far as I recall https://hoganstand.com/Cavan/article/index/337545

On divisions, 14 of the 34 panel from teams that played Division 1 U16 championship last year, 8 from Division 2 teams and the rest (12) from teams in Divison 3 and 4. Decent spread across clubs and division, Ramor won the U16 Div1 championship with ease so no surprise to see them have most represented. I did mention before but I was impressed with the way this minor management team operated last year and have heard good things again this year in terms of their prep so hopefully they have a good year and might give us something to cheer about, doubt we will be doing too much of it for our senior team the ways things have gone so far!

I’ve no problem with the squad as it’s picked now. My point is it’s further proof of the Dads and Lads McCabe approach not working. I spoke to someone earlier who had a look over that list and said they reckon of the development squad picked for 2024 as U15s, there is only 15 of 45 left. That’s a 33% success rate and then people wonder why young lads lose interest in county football.

Both Graham and Jake Brady played in the hammering by Meath:

https://hoganstand.com/Meath/article/index/337239

I wasn’t a fan of how O’Hanlon setup the minors last year. He had good attacking talent and played a very conservative game.

If he can get results this year, he’ll be working miracles.

Felt like it in the stand anyway

Would not surprise me. Meath 100% had more than us and Kildare too. It's becoming the norm to be honest. It has been happening for years, our support is in decline bigtime.

But luckily we've plans to increase the capacity in Breffni. Which is really badly needed for…errm…

Wouldn't have much in the way in numbers but the Dubs in the league was the last "big" crowd in Breffni and that was because the Dubs brought big numbers (and didn't for the All Ireand). Cavan vs Tyrone in Ulster on a scorching hot day only had about 10,000.

Crowds are way down due to so many games but Cavan's fall off in support for a "football mad" county should be of huge concern.

That may be true but you can't argue the Cavan attendance at matches is well down, jesus when I think back to the 90s and 00s and compare to now its embarrassing really. I remember being in Mullingar in a league semi final against Roscommon and feeling like a sardine in a tin. The athmosphere was electric, its just so flat and stale now.

Flat and stale a bit like the team at the moment.