'More bite' was sorely needed

Analysis

This was a very disappointing day for Cavan, writes DAMIEN DONOHOE.

Once again Tyrone have got our measure in championship action and this time we have to look closely at ourselves. This was by no means a vintage Tyrone team by the high standards they set for themselves over the last 30 years. Without their best forward and a number of other key players, they were there to be got at but by the time we really had a go at them, they were half way down the track.

Tyrone’s dominance on the kick-out battle in the first half was probably the must influential factor in deciding the outcome. They won seven of their eight kick-outs in the first half and won nine of our 16. Of Tyrone’s 14 points (82% shot conversion rate) in the first half, they scored six of them after winning the ball on a Cavan restart.

The strategy for the Cavan kick-outs was an overload to one side of the field. The idea of an overload is that you use the advantage of being able to kick the ball to the area you want on the field, you can bring extra players into that area and usually extra players gives you a better chance of winning the ball.

When looking at the system set up before the kick, Cavan achieved extra bodies in the area where the kick-out was going to go, so the first box is ticked. The second thing is the kick-out now has to hit that area and for the majority of the 16 kick-outs in the first half, Gary O’Rourke did this. It wasn’t a flawless kick-out display by Gary but, for me, it wasn’t the problem.

Once the ball is kicked out and the players are in a good starting position, it is vital that the opposition don’t win the kick-out clean. The ball must be won in the air by a blue jersey or broken to the ground so the extra bodies there can use that advantage to claim the ball. From memory, I don’t think there were a huge amount of Cavan kick-outs caught clean by either team.

So that leaves the breaking ball battle - why did we come out so far behind Tyrone in this area? There is an element of luck to winning breaking ball but like most things that people say luck influences, there are a huge number of controllable factors which can contribute to a successful outcome.

Timing is the first of them and the Tyrone players got their timing spot on. Being in the right place at the right time isn’t luck, it’s good planning. Many years ago, when kick-outs were a contest, I was over an underage team in Drumalee and we had a great rivalry with Cavan Gaels. They had a player by the name of Gearoid Collins, whose father coincidentally comes from Tyrone, and he was a master at winning breaking ball.

The Gaels had big midfielders in Joe Kenny and Ed O’Hanlon (the current county minor manager) and Collins usually played in the half-back line. The trick Collins mastered as a teenager was when the ball was in the air, he could run to the area where the bigger players were jumping to compete, while keeping an eye on the flight of the ball. He would then accelerate into a position under the jumpers and steal the breaking ball from the other players standing waiting on it.

His timing was complemented by two other key factors. His handling was excellent and he was brave to a fault. The Tyrone players were significantly better than us at doing this on Sunday and that’s why Tyrone could win breaking ball with less players in the area.

In the last few minutes of the first half, Dara McVeety came out to the middle of the field for a Cavan kick-out and attacking the breaking ball area to gain a first possession from a Cavan kick-out in what felt like a very long time. It stood out when it should be normal.

The last point on the kick-outs, which improved greatly in the second half, was the speed they were taken at. Michael Hannon spotted this during our commentary of the game on radio. When Tyrone had time to set up with a press, they invariably won the ball. In the second half, it looked like O’Rourke was making a conscious effort to get the ball on to the tee and away as quick as possible and we enjoyed a far better return.

The opening 10 minutes tell a story in itself. Immediately from the throw-in, there was a poor hand pass and, seconds later, a poor kick pass from Cavan. With our next attack, Tyrone forced a turnover where a player was isolated when he went to take on his man. Inside the first six minutes, our defence had turned over Tyrone three times, but we were then caught for a three-up infraction which resulted in Tyrone’s second point.

When we won a breaking ball off our kick-out that followed, Niall Morgan was caught out of goals, but we failed to punish, with the shot going wide from the top of the D. We won Morgan’s kick-out clean and with a swift 13-second attack, the ball is over the bar for our opener. Once again, our defenders won a turnover but we lost possession in attack in what looked like it could have been a Cavan free.

All these mental and technical mistakes point to a nervousness or fear in some Cavan players and maybe that’s understandable. The run of injuries the group has gone through has meant that preparation for this game has been hindered and right up to days before the game, the first 15 was still unknown within the panel. Some lads have rushed back from injury, others have been thrown-in into the deep end out of necessity so continuity isn’t possible.

In general play, defensively I felt like some players came away with credit, particularly in our full back line, but there were too many players that looked off the standard set by the Tyrone players. For some it was as simple as desire, for others it looked physical, but I thought Ryan McMenamin said it best at half-time when he said some just need “more bite”.

In the second half, we saw a big improvement and actually won that period 0-16 to 1-10. Five two pointers from McVeety (three), Madden and Kiernan raised the chances of a comeback but Kilpatrick’s goal eight minutes from the end poured cold water on that dream.

Overall, I’d imagine if the lads could play the game again, they would have been a bit braver in the first half and ran at Tyrone more. Taking just nine first-half shots isn’t good enough to beat a team like Tyrone and scoring just four of them isn’t good enough for the standard required to wear the blue jersey.

Now it’s time to switch attention to the All-Ireland series and try to get what we saw in the second half against Tyrone for a full 70 minutes. With more bodies back from injury, that, in my opinion, is very achievable.