Cavan and Mayo renew rivalries

Preview

For two counties quite a distance apart, there is an affinity between Cavan and Mayo, maybe due to the many Mayo people in this part of the country or perhaps because of the fact that Gaelic football is the dominant cultural and sporting pursuit in both counties and their journeys have followed relatively similar paths.

When Cavan and Mayo met in the 1948 All-Ireland final, both counties were nearing their footballing zeniths. Cavan had won the All-Ireland the year before, would lose the final the year after and win it again in 1952.

In the interim between Cavan’s fourth and fifth All-Irelands, Mayo would win back-to-back titles in 1950 and ’51. In 1953, Cavan were stunned in the Ulster final by Armagh and Mayo lost the Connacht final to Roscommon – it must have been disappointing for both counties but few could have foreseen the slide that was to come.

While Cavan did win Ulster titles again in ’54 and ’55, there followed a seven-year run without a title, unthinkable at the time. Four Ulsters were mined in the 1960s and since that, just two. Neither county has got their hands on Sam Maguire since.

Anyway, back to ’48. A unique pairing also threw up a unique scoreline; Cavan, having been 12 points up at one stage, won it by 4-5 to 4-4.

All-Ireland finals tend to become synonymous with iconic incidents; big matches, remembered in perpetuity for little moments. In the closing stages of the ’48 final, there was one such occurrence when Mayo’s ‘Flying Doctor’ Padraig Carney had a close-range free to tie the game.

As he lined up to take it, Cavan’s brilliant centre-forward Mick Higgins, ever the shrewd operator, edged, inch by inch, closer to the kicker and as the whistle sounded and then Carney struck the ball, Higgins charged him and got his fingertips to it to block the kick. The ball rebounded away and soon, the final whistle sounded.

So it was that a Mayo man (sort of – Higgins was born in New York but his father, John, was a native of Kiltimagh and the family had lived there for a time in Mick’s youth) denied the county an All-Ireland.

Younger readers may be surprised to learn that Mayo lifted the Nestor Cup just three times between 1952 and 1980.

It is commonly held that depopulation was one of the main reasons for the footballing decline of both counties. Mayo had a population of 141,000 –fourth highest in Ireland – when winning in 1951 while Cavan was the 14th most populated county at the time. Now, they are 12th and 25th respectively.

There must have been other reasons at play, too – one late and long-serving Cavan official blamed the opening of the county’s first disco at Crover House! – but nobody can say with certainty what the reasons for the downturn were.

It must be noted that Cavan and Mayo’s paths diverged from the late 1980s on. Since 1989, Mayo have reached 11 All-Ireland senior finals (not including replays), seven U20/U21 finals, eight minor finals and seven All-Ireland Club SFC deciders while the Breffnimen have qualified for just two U21 finals in the same period.

Meetings between the two have been sparse of late too but Cavan do have a relatively recent win on their ledger, a tremendous victory in Castlebar in a Division 1 league match in 2017.

Mayo have become synonymous with not getting over the line in All-Ireland finals but the tag that sometimes goes with that – that they are perennial chokers – is unfair. It should be noted that of all the finals Mayo have played in modern times, Mayo have been underdogs – all, that is, bar 2021 when it could be argued they left one behind them against Tyrone.

Since that loss, their form has been up and down. In 2022, they lost by a point to Galway in the Connacht Championship, beat Monaghan and Kildare and were well beaten by Kerry in the All-Ireland quarter-final.

Last year, they again struggled for consistency. They  won the league, were knocked out of the Connacht Championship by Roscommon a week later, beat Kerry by five points in Killarney and then saw off Louth by one, unexpectedly lost to Cork, beat Galway by the minimum in the quarter-final but shipped a heavy loss against Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final.

This year’s league was a little steadier but their form still oscillated. They opened with an eight-point win over Galway, held off the Dubs by one and lost to Kerry by the same margin before losing to Tyrone, beating Roscommon, losing to Derry and beating Monaghan.

They were fancied to beat a stuttering Galway in the first round of the Connacht SFC but wilted in the closing stages and here they are, second-seeds in the Sam Maguire but unsure of where exactly they are at.

Post-2020, Cavan’s form also slumped, culminating in relegations and poor home losses against Armagh and Down last year in the Ulster SFC and Tailteann Cup respectively.

Under Ray Galligan, there has been a marked improvement and the 2024 Division 2 section looks stronger by the week, with Donegal, Armagh, Cork and Louth all doing well in championship and Cavan knocking out Division 1 Monaghan and running Tyrone, fifth-place finishers in the top flight, to a point after extra time.

Cavan will likely target the Roscommon game, to be played at a neutral venue in round three; a win there would probably be enough to send Galligan’s charges through to the ‘preliminary quarter-final’ but a victory over Mayo or Dublin would be a massive boost.

The big worry is that Paddy Lynch has been sidelined for the season but perhaps another forward will step up to fill that void to some extent. Otherwise, with a few weeks having passed since the Tyrone game and decent work-outs in challenge matches against the likes of Cork and Meath, Cavan look to be in good shape and given the experience in the side, should not be over-awed by the trip west.

Mayo have vast experience too, though, and in Tommy Conroy and particularly Ryan O’Donoghue, a couple of very dangerous inside forwards – and that’s not to mention the championship’s all-time leading scorer Cillian O’Connor, who also has strong family ties here in Cavan through his uncle, Cavan Gaels stalwart Joe, and his cousins.

Mayo have been installed as 1/5 favourites to win this, which seems short given that Cavan have some solid lines of form to look back on, including wins over Monaghan, Cork and Louth and one-point losses to Donegal and Tyrone, all of whom are surely in the top 12 to 14 teams in the country.

Writing about Mayo and Galway in the Irish Times before they met, Sean Moran opined: “Over the years this has generally been a fixture in which no favourites are so far ahead that they could survive playing badly if the opposition play well.”

The same can be said for Cavan and Monaghan so, leaving that terrific Clones victory aside, a win in Castlebar would represent Cavan’s best in the championship since the Ulster final in 2020 – and rubber-stamp the sense that Galligan is getting the best out of this group.

All-Ireland SFC group stage, R1: Cavan v Mayo, Saturday, McHale Park, 5pm.