Daly: ‘The two deepest squads have probably made the final’

SFC final preview

Ryan Daly has long been a regular visitor to Cavan as a handball player and coach – his home club, Carrickmore, is a hotbed of the game – and as a keen golfer but it is football which has taken him here on an extended basis.

The Tyrone man was originally invited to coach Crosserlough under Donal Keogan but when Keogan opted not to take up the manager’s role, that job fell to Daly – and he’s glad it did.

“I was approached to come into Cavan as a lead coach with Crosserlough, Donal Keogan approached me and I was looking forward to getting to work alongside Donal. And I suppose from my conversations with him and different people, I’d have been aware of the teams within the county and I knew Crosserlough would have been, I suppose could you say an up and coming team?” Daly commented.

“They were young players with loads of ability and I suppose when the opportunity arose to take it on I thought it was something where we could make an impact, putting together a process for the players to try and improve.

“And at the end of the day that’s all we can do, we can’t make promises of league titles or championship titles, all we can try and do is get the best our of our squad and the squad as a whole to date have been fantastic to work with. A lot of young lads coming through, a lot of great potential coming through, and I suppose then we’ve got the older heads that everybody is well aware of with Dara and James.

“So it’s been an enjoyable season to date and no matter how the final goes, when I look back at 2024 in Crosserlough, it’s been a good time.”

The Tyrone SFC remains a straight knock-out – possibly the only one in Ireland – and is famously cut-throat from the off. In Cavan, the format is different and Daly admitted it took some adjusting.

“Being from Tyrone, it’s always been knock-out and I’ve been used to the knock-out. Coming down, it has taken me a bit of time to get used to the new approach. Am I a fan of it? It gives you time as a coach and a manager to work with your team and give them experience under the cosh but I think I still would be a wee bit old school in saying that if you’re beaten twice, you should be out of the championship and I don’t think that if a team gets beat twice, going a third time is the ideal scenario, it’s hard for everybody going forward but look, it suited us this year, it gave us a chance to integrate the players back in and it worked.

“I’ve been told plenty of times that we got the easy route to the final and everybody is very quick to highlight that but if you go back and look at the teams that we have played, we have beaten teams that have given all the big teams in Cavan trouble over the years. We had a run-in with Mullahoran and then we had the run-in with the Gaels and I suppose Ballinagh are just after getting promoted out of Division 2 so they can’t be under-looked either.

“And at the end of the day, I don’t make the fixtures. It’s whatever gets picked out of the hat, it’s the luck of the draw and all we can do is prep for the team that comes in front of us and thankfully we’ve got here to the blue riband event. I think to be fair, the two teams that have made it this year are probably the two teams that have the biggest depth in their squads this year in terms of availability.

“And that’s no disrespect to any other team but the two teams that have got there got to the semi-finals of the league and got to the semi-finals of the championship and that’s not by any luck.”

Crosserlough were dealt a shattering blow when star man Paddy Lynch, who had been in the form of his life with the county, suffered an ACL tear at training back in late April. They had no other option but to dust themselves down and get on with it, says Daly, who doesn’t entirely rule out a county final appearance from his leading marksman.

“Look, we were gutted when Paddy had the incident. He was putting on an exhibition at training and on the last attack, he was on his own, caught the ball, laid it off and then went down.

“It’s no secret the calibre of player that Paddy is. I’ve been watching him on the county scene and he had some outstanding performances, he’s probably as good a dead ball kicker as there is within the game.

“And you know yourself, it was a massive blow at the time to Cavan never mind Crosserlough and I suppose we’ve had time to assess it and deal with it and at the end of the day, Paddy wasn’t going to be available the majority of the year.

“He has put in a serious shift the last four months and it’s great to see him back on the pitch. He has been cleared to come back and he’s out training and look, Paddy will be a massive addition to any team that he plays on and unfortunately to date he hasn’t been available to the squad.

“There’s no point crying over spilled milk, we have to put the task ahead of us and work a plan without him and as you’re well aware, I’d rather be putting a plan together with him but unfortunately I can’t.”

Could he feature on Sunday?

“Paddy is back on the field, he’s training, he’s taking part in activities, kicking… at this stage it’s probably a wee bit too early for Paddy to step back on the field of play because at the end of the day we want Paddy to be comfortable when he goes back on and we want to make sure that he’s right before he wears a jersey in competitive play again.”

The common consensus was that the ‘Lough were in need of a test, having cruised through the early rounds, and they got it last time out against Cavan Gaels.

“Every championship game is a tough task no matter what your opposition. The teams that we played at the very, very start, in all the games, they put it up to us for 30, 40 minutes and then there were wee elements of purple patches that we got and some of the scores didn’t reflect the games.

“We played Mullahoran, we played Cavan Gaels and I suppose the Cavan Gaels game was a good test, particularly with the conditions that we were up against. It was a dirty night, big physical team, the conditions weren’t ideal underfoot, it was wet, it was slippy, and for us to come away with the victory I think was just deserved on the night.

“I thought we defended well, I thought we hunted better and then we got a couple of critical scores at the right time. Were we wasteful? Absolutely but I suppose you know yourself, when you’re there and there’s a blanket defence in front of you and there’s a strong breeze, some boys like to have a go and thankfully we got over the line. For the opposition, Gearoid kicked three or four screaming free-kicks, they weren’t even in the scoring zone as such, he kicked a couple that were different class but again we all know that that’s the class of player he is.

“We were happy to get over the line and now we’re looking forward to the final, it’s where we wanted to be and at the end of the day, somebody is going to have to win and somebody is going to have to lose but unless you’re in the county final, you don’t have that opportunity and thankfully we have that opportunity next Sunday.”

Ramor, he says, have impressed him greatly.

“Having watched Ramor, they have probably been one of the strongest panels we have seen to date. They have some fabulous footballers, I would say to date Jack Brady and Ben Smith have probably been the players of the championship, they have been outstanding. Ramor’s work-rate is super, the two lads, the McNabb men, have put a serious work ethic into them, they are working all over the pitch, there are very few players that are standing still.

“I think if you’re looking at the work-rate Eoin Somerville puts in, it’s next level. So they’re not here by luck, they’re not here by chance, they’ve got quality all over the pitch, they’ve got finishers and to me they have been one of the stand-out teams in Cavan.

“The two teams have to go head to head, I would say both sets of managers are hoping that the teams turn up on the day and provide a good spectacle of football and who comes out on the right side of it will be the deserving winners and we’ll have to accept the outcome.”