Preview: Cavan are underdogs but plenty to be positive about

By Damien Donohoe

The disappointment of being relegated to Division 3 of the league for 2021 will have to be pushed to the back of Cavan’s minds for the time being. There’s no time for post mortems or assigning blame. Cavan must focus solely on the Ulster championship clash with our closest rivals Monaghan.

Can they do it? It’s a big ask but maybe not as big as some people think.

Looking back to give us a guide on performance, Cavan won more ball, had more attacks, gave the ball away less and had more shots than Roscommon but still didn’t win. That shows that a lot of what they are doing is working.

All of the above are the stages or parts of the process of winning. You can’t score without creating chances, you can’t create chances if you give the ball away and you most have your fair share of the ball. So in the simplest of terms, what Cavan need to do is increase their conversion rate.

Take a different scenario, if Mickey Graham’s charges weren’t creating chances and had less ball than their opponents, there would be a lot more to correct to try and win games. As it stands, if they improve their shooting they should get a better result.

The style of play that Cavan appear to be trying to play is fundamentally attacking. This in effect leaves your defence more exposed, as more players are thinking about how they can create a score for the team rather than planning for when the opposition have the ball.

Cavan in the past have been criticised for the defensive style they adopted but maybe that was a reaction by the management of the time to the players they had at their disposal. The current management have taken a different path and it too has seen criticism thrown at them from the public.

The difficult job at hand is getting the balance between attack and defence correct. Cavan could easily revert back to a blanket defence and become very hard to break down given the experience they have in the group right now. The problem is the counter-attacking game relies on you taking a high percentage of the limited chances you create and Cavan’s counter attack doesn’t look potent enough at present.

They could change the personnel in front of goal but in doing that, they’d be gambling that the new players introduced will be able to create as many chances as the lads that are currently in possession of the jersey. Remember, they are creating chances but just not taking them.

You won’t score if you don’t take the shot, so backing the players to improve their shooting on Saturday is probably the best option.

They say you only change your plan if you’re lost and a change of plan at the 11th hour would only plant doubt in the minds of the players. Mickey Graham came in promising attacking football and he has delivered that as proven by the level of chances created in games.

The other thing that Mickey Graham stated was that he wanted to improve Cavan’s Ulster Championship record. Last year he delivered that with a win over Monaghan and making the Ulster final. Can he now produce an upset to match Mullinalaghta’s Leinster final win over Kilmacud Crokes by beating Monaghan?

There’s an argument to be made that Cavan may enter this game with a more experienced side than Monaghan. Nine of the starting Cavan team from last Saturday have over 65 appearances in the blue jersey with the average appearances for the starting 15 coming in at 59.4 games or 891 total games. And like Monaghan, a lot of that experience is at the back end of the field.

Up front Cavan’s newcomers of Cormac O’Reilly, James Smith, Conor Smith, Oisin Brady and (even though he started in the championship last year) Oisin Pierson are being asked to get the scores to win games but that’s not the case for Monaghan.

The big difference for the Farney newcomers of Michael Bannigan, Stephen O’Hanlon, David Garland and Andrew Woods is Conor McManus will do the majority of scoring for them. If they add a point or two each, it’s a bonus.

On a side note, we may see James Smith and Andrew Woods both make their championship debuts next Saturday which would be interesting after they both played such key roles in the epic Ulster Minor Championship clash in 2017.

While Cavan aren’t coming into this game full of confidence, Monaghan aren’t overflowing with it either. In reality they will have taken more from their defeat at the hands of Kerry than they did from a draw with Meath.

Both camps will have valuable insight into the other with Cavan’s coach Martin Corey being a Clontibret man who would have worked with a number of the Monaghan players in the past. Peter Donnelly, on the other hand, would know Cavan’s more experience players inside out from his time working here.

Seamus McEnaney side retained Division 1 football with wins over Mayo and Tyrone and draws with Meath and Dublin and from those games it looks like he too is playing a more attacking style. The thing to watch for next Saturday with McEnaney is that he has been on record as saying that you won’t win an Ulster Championship unless you can play a defensive style.

Will we then see Monaghan play big numbers behind the ball and try to pick off Cavan with a counter-attacking game? With the option of Conor McManus in a one-on-one or even a two-on-one, Monaghan may be happy that he could do enough damage on his own so it may be an option.

The intensity of a knock-out championship against our nearest and fiercest rivals coupled with the fact that this is the only chance Cavan will have at a tilt for Sam Maguire, unless they reach next year’s Ulster final, until at least 2022 should see the group give every last ounce of effort their bodies have.

For Cavan to win, they will need to run harder on and off the ball, block, tackle and win more breaks, be brave enough to get on the ball, take their chances and believe in each other. There is no second chance, there is no next year.

The time is now for this team to step up and what an occasion it will be if they do.