Five areas Cavan must target against Armagh

Michael Hannon
Football analyst

There are a number of key battles that Cavan are going to have to get right if they are going to win this game with Armagh on Sunday.

Armagh might have got relegated back down to Division 3 this season but in a league that is notorious for being closely fought, their performances weren’t as bad as Cavan people might think.

Our perspective is clouded by the 17-point hammering that the Breffni men dished out to the Orchard in round four of the campaign. However their true level was probably not reflected in that game.

They finished with six points in the league, level with Fermanagh, Meath, and Derry. They had -16 as their score difference so in actual fact, had they not been so abysmal on that night in Kingspan Breffni Park, they would’ve secured their division 2 status on scoring difference.

OraAnother way to look at it, eight more scores over the course of the campaign would’ve been enough to stay up and have seen Derry relegated instead. That’s nearly the equivalent of one missed wide a game.
When you put it that way these are very fine margins indeed.

Interestingly, their performances seemed to improve as the campaign progressed so it’s probable that they were gradually fixing and improving things on the training ground as the weeks went by.

 

1: DEFENSIVE STRUCTURE

Cavan seemed to become a little more cavalier as the league campaign progressed. Sure, big scores were accumulated, but teams were also managing to get a lot more shots off against the Blues. 

Take Tyrone in Croker, they hit 1-17 but could’ve easily finished off another few goal chances. Laois hit a huge number of shots in their Breffni Park clash, too.
If we take the margin of the Cavan-Armagh league result as an outlier in terms of the measure of this Armagh side, then we see a team who consistently concede in or around the 15-point mark.

Cavan will not want to allow Armagh to dictate the terms. McGeeney will know that he’ll have to try and reduce those 15 scores conceded a game to around the 13-point mark.

I think the starting point of doing this will be to stop his side from conceding frees, after giving up five the last day out in Breffni Park. He will need to make sure they get loads of men back behind the ball. So, it may develop into a cagey opening half with plenty of big hits in the middle third to slow down the movement of the ball.

Cavan will want to keep their own defensive discipline. The last thing they want to happen is to commit too many men forward in the opening 20 minutes and end up chasing the game as a result of getting hit on the counter-attack. The team who defends the best will win this one.

 

2: THE KICK-OUT

Cavan absolutely cleaned Armagh out when the sides met in the Spring. With big men flooding the midfield area, there were times in the first half in particular that Armagh were unable to win their own kick-out.

Their forward line would set up in different formations on their own kick-out as if they had pre-planned set moves they wanted to run, but a failure to win the ball in the middle meant we never saw what any of those moves might be.

If they can somehow return to parity on their own kick-out, it will take away one of Cavan’s great strengths. We saw how Tyrone routinely won their own kick-out despite the best efforts of Cavan to press the Red Hands.

I’m sure McGeeney and his backroom will have watched the video of that game to see what they can learn. Cavan’s kick-outs have been pretty impressive this year with Ray Galligan (above) finding a host of outfield players with precision kicking.

Tyrone have only sporadically managed in their two meetings with Cavan to have any success in attacking this Breffni strength. If Armagh somehow replicate that, it may make proceedings decidedly less comfortable for Hyland’s side.

 

3: JOHNSTON AND GIVNEY Vs A DOUBLE SWEEPER

Speaking of watching the Tyrone game in Croke Park last month, if Armagh learned anything it will be how the presence of Colm Cavanagh as a sweeper in front of the full-forward line utterly dominated the game where he was ably assisted by alternating team-mates.

Cavan full-forward David Givney’s best game of the league came against Armagh when he won nearly every ball that was sent into him.

It gave the perfect platform for Johnston to string together a series of scores and passes that opened up the Orchard County’s defence.

I find it hard to imagine that Kieran McGeeney will not try and replicate to some level the defensive gameplan that Tyrone used.

Whether or not they’re capable of doing it with anywhere the same level of execution as Tyrone did is questionable. However, it does leave Cavan with a conundrum.

Should they leave Seanie Johnston inside in such a scenario? Givney could always win a high ball but surely Johnston’s talents would better serve the team in a more withdrawn role aournd the 40-metre line.

And if that happens, who should join Givney inside? It might just force an early substitution, which leads us on to our next key point...

 

 

 

4: USE AND FORM OF THE SUBSTITUES BENCH

Cavan’s current panel is arguably the strongest one available to Hyland since he took the job of manager. There are nearly two options available to him in every position.

With the way Cavan have been playing throughout the Spring, certain players have been expected to do a serious about of high intensity running in games, so fatigue management will be an issue throughout this championship campaign - which means clever use of subs.

Introducing players with pace and running power in the last 20 minutes of games should give the side an added impetus going forward.

I’m thinking of guys like Gerry Smith from Lavey who saw no game time in the league but could make a big contribution off the bench.

Cian Mackey, who has been used in this role at times in the league, has yet to hit top gear. If Cavan are to win a provincial championship, the Castlerahan playmaker will need too find form over the next few weeks - something he has traditionally managed to do throughout his career.

 

5: PLAYING WITH PATIENCE INSTEAD OF JUST WITH PURPOSE

If Armagh come to town and decide to park the bus, then Cavan will need to execute a style of play that marries both patience and purpose, at least until they get their noses in front and force Armagh to come out and play football.

This was something they never managed to do against Tyrone in Croke Park. Too often, ball was taken into tackles by isolated Cavan players, who were subsequently caught and disposed in two vs one situations. 

Ensuring the ball goes dead forces Armagh to take a kick-out and, as we saw before, that will probably mean ‘advantage Cavan’.

However, getting turned over will allow the Orchard to counter-attack. Key playmakers and ball-carriers like Dara McVeety (above), Martin Reilly and indeed anyone inside that middle third of the field are going to have to make good decisions on the ball. 

Preventing attacking turnovers in going to be key. Minimise these and victory should belong to Cavan.