London will not fear Cavan - Graham

Tailteann Cup

Having overcome the potential banana skin opponents of Laois, Cavan now look to continue their Tailteann Cup adventure with a trip to London this weekend.

Manager Mickey Graham is hoping to restore his squad for the latter rounds of the group stages. Dara McVeety, Conor Madden and Jason McLaughlin were not named on the Cavan 26 for the Laois game, and are unlikely to feature this weekend.

“We decided after the Armagh game that the lads had been carrying a few knocks during the course of the league campaign and we decided now was the opportunity to get them fixed up," explained Graham. "We want to send them back to their clubs fully right too so we just decided we’d give them time to get them sorted and hopefully, we’ll see them boys in the next two or three weeks.

“We’d be hoping to have them back by the end of the group stages.”

For the Laois encounter there was a more youthful look to the starting Cavan team with Niall Carolan, Tiarnán Madden and Ryan O’Neill coming in.

“The more games them lads can get the better, in this competition. It’s more exposure. We brought on Brandon (Boylan), Conor Rehill came on there again.

“Conor had been away from us for a number of years, and he’s got himself into real good shape again and it’s great to see him back putting on the Cavan jersey. There’s a couple of other lads there too chomping at the bit so it’s good and hopefully we’ll get the opportunity to give more lads game time as we move forward.”

London tie

London are coming into Saturday's match off the back of a defeat to Offaly, 2-14 to 0-11. However that's not the only London performance on the minds of the Cavan management. In March 2022 Cavan suffered a scare when they just about held on to claim a narrow win.

“When you’re involved with Cavan football you can never take anything for granted because the days you expect to win are the days you’ll lose and the days you expect to lose are the days you win.

"London will have no fear, they’ll look at the last day and they could have shocked us over there last year so we’ll have to treat them with the respect we treat everybody else with.”

Cavan travel to face London in McGovern Park, Ruislip for Round 2 of the Tailtean Cup on Saturday, 2pm throw-in. Referee: John Gilmartin