MOSTLY FOOTBALL: Cavan’s intelligence made the difference against Donegal

This was a win built on brains as much as skills and preparation — and that is actually the most impressive factor of all, writes MICHAEL HANNON.

Of all the admirable qualities on display in last Wednesday’s Ulster U21 final, there was one moment that captured perfectly the most important factor for today’s modern game — intelligence.

Gerard Smith, who up to this point had been terrorising the Donegal defence in an opening 20-minute exhibition, found himself in possession near the half-way line. A Donegal player, wary of the threat posed by Smith’s acceleration, cautiously approached, fearful that he was about to be burned for speed.

Smith slowed down, but kept his head up, and surveyed the movement of yellow Donegal jerseys up ahead. There was a solitary Cavan body in front of him. Suddenly he started to go backwards, facing forwards, tapping the ball from his foot to his hand. He never turned his back to the Donegal player, which surely would have only encouraged him to rush up and press the young Cavanman. Smith took three or four solos and then layed the ball off inside him to supporting team-mates belatedly coming through the middle.

In the meantime, additional Donegal bodies had managed to filter back but none of this seemed to perturb Smith, or indeed his team-mates.

The incident sharply juxtaposed with an experience of my own a few years back. We were busy preparing for Fermanagh’s visit to Breffni Park in the Ulster Senior Championship under Tommy Carr. Fermanagh had been practising the dark arts of mass defence that year and it was this issue that was dominating most of our training sessions.

Tommy, quite rightly, had explained to us that in order to beat the mass defence, we would have to move the ball at break-neck speeds up the pitch before the Fermanagh boys had managed to get back inside their own 45 in numbers. But something didn’t sit right with me about our approach. I waited until I had an opportunity to speak to Tommy on his own and politely put it to him that regardless of how fast we tried to move the ball, there would still be numerous occasions in each half when we’d reach the 45-metre line and Fermanagh would still have 12 men behind the ball.

I suggested it was what we did in this scenario that would determine whether we won the game or not. In other words, we’d have to find two ways to beat the mass defence. Truthfully we didn’t really come up with a plan B, some sort of protocol to slip back into when we found ourselves in these situations. We managed to squeeze past that Fermanagh team that day but when we came up against Antrim in the semi-final, too often we were clueless when they had numbers back and ended up turning ball over by forcing situations that weren’t ever really going to produce a good scoring opportunity. We hadn’t instilled enough intelligent play into our game.

Watching Cavan U21s the last day, the intelligence of their play stood out, in particular in the first half where they carved open many good point-scoring opportunities. Just like Smith did, when he realised that while he might beat one player, but he wasn’t going to beat seven, and thus bided his time. Sometimes it’s better to move the ball more slowly, with a little more strategy, than move it at lightning speed and end up in a congested corridor of opposition players.

It was evident with the calmness that they played with when in possession that they were not going to get bogged down with beating Donegal in a race back up the pitch. Sure, when they could, they did, but when they couldn’t, they didn’t risk turning over possession by pursuing a more risky approach with their ball movement. In other words, they played the percentages. It’s easy to take this approach when you have a plan B that works.

The difference in the two teams was how they reacted when faced with the mass defence. Donegal, in fairness to them, refused to kick poor ball into McBrearty when he found himself surrounded by numerous Cavan players. The only problem was they didn’t really have an efficient way to attack once their initial fast break had been slowed down.

When Cavan were forced to execute a slower and more patient attack, a threat was sustained because of the movement of their inside forward line. For while the Donegal inside forward line made one or two runs to get on the ball, if it wasn’t released in that initial attack, the inside players would stop and the outside players, who would begin to recycle possession, didn’t really have anywhere to go with it.

Cavan’s inside forward line was constantly on the move, and while he didn’t get his hands on as much possession as some other players, Paul O’Connor’s movement was exceptional in this regard. Both himself and Enda O’Reilly were constantly on the move and would eventually escape a yard from their markers. It was when this situation was manufactured that the additional Donegal defenders in the mass defence would need to step away to cover the run being made.

Regardless of whether the ball was kicked or not, once these spare defenders were drawn out of position it opened up the perimeter of the mass defence for players such as Michael Argue, Gerard Smith and Chris Conroy to exploit. If the inside run warranted a kick-pass, it was kicked. If the inside run was successfully covered, then the implosion of the mass defence would allow penetration further out the field — just enough penetration to have players kicking from inside their range.

While this is a forensic analysis of how many of Cavan’s scoring chances were created, the reality is this game plan probably organically evolved by instilling two basic principles of play: play the percentage pass all the time so as to not give up possession and preach to the full-forward line to be constantly on the move, making multiple runs, in multiple directions to get on the ball.

Once those tenets are in place, all you need is players with the composure to follow through, even when the crowd is yelling “kick it in”.

Donegal didn’t have this instilled in their game and by the time they figured out that they didn’t need to be sending in perfect ball in order for McBrearty to win it, they were five points behind.

So successful was Cavan’s approach that in the second half, Donegal abandoned their mass defence and decided to press Cavan further up the pitch, inside their own half to be exact. For me, this period was probably the most disappointing of the game from a Cavan point of view. For once, Donegal exposed themselves at the back yet we never really looked like exploiting this by creating goal chances. Jack Brady, who had been having a fine game foraging all over the park, might have been able to exploit, with his pace, the wide-open spaces up front. A re-jigging of the forward line at this stage might have killed off the game.

Put one or two pacier players up front and a few easier chances might be created. Because pace and space is a dangerous combination...

Overall, though, it was a very disciplined and methodical display, with the odd flash of brilliance. Chris Conroy’s two long-range points lit up the evening, his last in particular drawing huge roars of encouragement from the Breffni followers in the stands.

I’m delighted for Peter Reilly, too, in this his first year as manager of this team. It can’t have been easy to take over after the success of the last two years but he and his backroom team have done a terrific job so far with this bunch of players.

Now let’s hope they can go one better than in 2011 and 2012. Three Ulster Championships in a row is a brilliant achievement, but an All-Ireland title would really leave you optimistic for the future. First up, though, is Cork, fresh from doing their own three-in-a-row in Munster. Cavan will be required to draw on their entire repertoire of skills and qualities to advance, and not just intelligence. Two battle-hardened teams at this stage of the competition — so far, so good, as the saying goes.

Long may it continue.