Louth are coming to Breffni with revenge on their minds

Analysis

Damien Donohoe

Driving to Ardee last year ahead of the Louth match in the league, it didn’t feel like that big of a game. In my time following Cavan, we wouldn’t have had a rivalry with the Wee County and would have had the upper hand a fair degree of the time. During the game while live on radio the stats team working with the Louth side were sitting right beside us and were very vocal, bordering on aggressive, an approach which felt like it was mirrored by the Louth players.

At half-time, I remember making the point that Cavan had been asked a question physically by Louth in the first half and the style of refereeing meant Ray Galligan’s side had to either meet the Louth aggression or suffer a second league defeat. Thankfully, the Cavan lads matched fire with fire in the second half and came away with the two points and a real sense of satisfaction.

After the game, the Louth supporters I spoke with had been left with a sickened taste in their mouths. They didn’t like Cavan’s approach in the second half and the manager’s attempt to get James Smith off the field before he was shown a red card. A one-point win left every moment and every decision up for discussion for Louth and they felt like they had been robbed. The reason I bring that game up in a preview for this Sunday’s clash is because Ger Brennan’s side will be coming to Kingspan Breffni determined to exact revenge this Sunday.

Louth come into the game with a win and a loss in their opening two matches against Westmeath and Roscommon. In Mullingar, they scored 1-17 and conceded 0-18 to Dermot McCabe’s side with Sam Mulroy scoring five points (1tpf, 2f) and Sean Reynolds coming off the bench to bag their goal. They managed only one more two-pointer on a heavy TEG Cusack Park, which came from Ryan Burns.

They following week they welcomed Roscommon to Drogheda and again Mulroy was the top scorer with an eight-point total (2tpf, 4f). Ciaran Downey landed their only other two-pointer while for the second week in a row, a sub hit the net with Val Leddy finishing on that occasion.

The common trend with Louth in their opening two games is they conceded 18 scores, with Roscommon hitting 1-17. Cavan, in the same breath, have been consistent in their two games in the sense that they racked up a 20-point total in both while conceding 24 scores (2-22 and 3-21).

Louth have had to make a very big adjustment with the rule changes as they have relied on a strong blanket defensive system over the last few years. We saw them give up the kick-out against Dublin last year to such an extent that all 15 players ran back inside their own 45 after a shot went dead.

With all those bodies back and working hard, they forced a lot of turnovers and were very effective with a running, counter-attack game.

Now with only 11 out-field players allowed back, there is much more one-on-one defending and the evidence so far is they may be lacking a top player for that role.

Westmeath captain Luke Loughlin hit them for 12 points, with seven of that total coming from open play. Of Westmeath’s 18-point total, only six of that came from frees and the Lake County were guilty of squandering scoreable chances on top of that as well. Roscommon had nine different scorers against Louth with just four points of their 1-17 total coming from frees. Louth don’t look like they foul much but they also don’t look like they are tight enough at the back to stop the opposition getting shots away.

The advantage of players who can score two-pointers should become clearer as the rules continue to bed in but Cavan look well-positioned in this area. So far, six Cavan players have scored two-pointers in the league games with Dara McVeety, Oisin Kiernan(Castlerahan), Killian Clarke, Sean McEvoy, Darragh Lovett and Gearoid McKiernan raising nine orange flags between them. Louth have taken four two-pointers coming from three players in Sam Mulroy, Ciaran Downey and Ryan Burns.

The goalkeeping role is still very much evolving with the rule changes but Ger Brennan has stuck with the same goalkeeper in Niall McDonnell. After making his debut last year against Armagh in the league, McDonnell nailed down the number one jersey for the rest of the season.

In the opening two game McDonnell has expanded his horizon by joining the attacking play at the other end of the field. He isn’t the most comfortable in possession of the ball and tends to avoid risk so it will be interesting to see do Cavan pressurise him while he is in possession to target a turnover or leave him free to see how far he will go with the ball.

On kick-outs, Louth have aimed for their twin towers of Dara McDonnell and Tommy Durnin a lot so far but they haven’t fared well with the breaking ball that comes off them. Cavan have been strong in this area but will need to make better use of the ball once it’s in blue hands.

Louth have looked to go with a zonal press on the opposition kick-outs with the front three spreading themselves around the 40-metre arc. This allowed both Roscommon and Westmeath to position four or five players around the arc and get away a short kick-out. If Cavan can take advantage of this, they could use both sets of kick-outs as a foundation for victory.

All-Star wing-back Craig Lennon appears to be out injured for this weekend which is a blow to Louth but they are expected to see some of Ryan Burns, Ciaran Keenan, Conor Grimes, Ciaran McArdle and Dan Corcoran return to the starting team after being left off against Westmeath. Veterans Andy Williams and Bevan Duffy have played in challenge matches lately so may not be too far away either.

There’s no point in ignoring the elephant in the room which is Cavan’s home record. The last time Cavan seniors won a competitive game in Kingspan Breffni was May 13, 2023 when we beat Laois in the Tailteann Cup (2-20 to 1-14). A few weeks later, Down started a run of eight games without a home win. That wasn’t the start of it as our home record while in Divisions 1 and 2 has seen us lose more than we’ve won every year since 2018.

It’s time to put a stop to this and bring back a sense of fear for teams who come to Cavan.

We need to make Kingspan Breffni a difficult place to come to in every possible way for our opponents. The team has to be hurting after the opening two rounds but they haven’t become a bad team overnight and Sunday is a real chance to swing momentum from negative to positive.