MOSTLY FOOTBALL: Sin bin management crucial to Brewster win

Michael Hannon

Cavan slugged it out with Fermanagh last Saturday night in Brewster Park, eventually securing a win which saw them catapulted to the top of Division 2. 
Once Sunday's games were completed, I was sure score difference would knock them off top perch but Armagh’s surprise result against Westmeath that saw the favourites draw in Mullingar has turned a good weekend for Mickey Graham into a great one. 
The players and management will take pleasure in knowing that since the horror showing against Armagh in round one, the team has responded impressively in winning three games on the trot.
Away in Brewster Park is a tricky game for any of the teams in Division 2 so it will come as a relief for Mickey Graham to have navigated the tie safely. 
Fermanagh have yet to welcome Armagh and Laois to their home venue and I’d expect them to take points off one if not both of the other early pace-setters in the division. 
Local bragging rights still have a role to play in motivating players. Given where Gearoid McKiernan grew up in Swanlinbar, this fixture is of particular importance to him, much like it was for Anthony Forde back when I played.
Forde usually showed up for this local derby especially pumped up and ready to perform and last Saturday night McKiernan looked particularly keyed in and up for the challenge. 
With the concession of an early goal leaving the Breffni men three down, it was McKiernan who grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck to rattle off two quick points and bring Cavan back into it as Mickey Graham’s men hit five unanswered points to lead by two. 
In wet and slippery conditions and Fermanagh past masters at playing a defensive counter-attacking style, it was going to imperative that the Erne men were never allowed to open up or maintain a significant lead that would only play into their style of counter attacking football. 
Over that opening 20-minute period the groans from the Enniskillen crowd grew louder with every Fermanagh attack that ended with a wide or a shot dropped short. 
Had Ryan McMenamin's men more quality with regards to their finishing then they would be a much more dangerous proposition. 
I’m sure there’s going to come a day when they get hot and find their range. When that day does arrive they’re going to be capable of taking a scalp, and I’m not just talking about another division 2 side. 
Last year in the qualifiers they should have beaten Monaghan in Clones but kicked that one away too. But for now, if they continue to shoot as erratically as they did over the course of this game then they will have more near-misses than victories. 
From Cavan's perspective the way they handled Evan Doughty's sin-binning showed a little bit of development of their game play from the Armagh game. 
Down a man, they tried to shut up shop for those ten minutes and in fairness to them they restricted Fermanagh to a single point during that sin bin period just around half-time. 
It was interesting to watch Fermanagh’s response to having the extra player. I suppose they are on the receiving end of a fair amount of flak for the way they set up so defensively but there was a noticeable change in their approach once they had the extra man. 
They pushed up completely on Cavan, flooding the middle and well into Cavan's end of the field and made life very difficult for Cavan trying to work the ball out from the back. 
One moment in the middle of this sin bin period typified their approach. With Martin Reilly in possession and trying to restart the game from a free-kick, his man moved away from him to mark Raymond Galligan. 
Their goalkeeper came out the field to play as a sweeper around the 45-metre line. Their defenders all went man-to-man and still they had one extra body able to stand in the channel Cavan players wanted to move into to receive the pass from Reilly. 
Reilly looked around as the Fermanagh press came on and there simply wasn’t any options for him to pass to.
And eventually and I suppose inevitably, the referee blew his whistle, deciding the Cavan veteran had taken too long, and he hopped up the ball on the Cavan 20-metre line. 
It should’ve lead to a score for Fermanagh but thankfully from a Cavan perspective the defence dealt admirably with the aftermath of the throw up. 
Overall though it was good work from Fermanagh and interesting to see they had considered how to play without the ball once they found themselves a man up; however they hadn't put enough thought into how to go about exploiting the extra man once they had possession. 
Cavan, when they found themselves a man up in the second half, outscored Fermanagh by four points during that sin bin period. And when you sit back to reflect on the game, the difference in the two sides, which stood at three points at the end, came down to who made the most of the others' sin-binning. 
Interestingly, Cavan managed to get three points from marks, with another mark hit wide by James Smith over the course of the game. All four marks were caught underarm, and were the result of hard running and accurate passing.
Chris Conroy, who was having arguably his best performance in a Cavan jersey, was responsible for some of the foot-passes that lead to those marks. 
As I wrote last week in this column, the quality of the foot-passing is going to be the limiting factor in whether or not a team becomes machine-like at making advance marks.

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Looking up
Confidence must surely be growing among the panel as they go into round five of the league against Clare. The Banner men haven’t enjoyed the best of starts but they’re fighting for their Division 2 lives, and Tier 1 championship status, so there is going to be some sort of a kick in them.
They’ve scored poorly so far but have been forced to play two of their four games in atrocious conditions. 
If Cavan’s forward line continues to work as impressively as they have done so far without the ball, in applying pressure on the opposition as they work the ball up the field, then it will continue to allow the defenders to shine as the ball gets delayed or sent in to the opposition under pressure. 
Killian Brady and Padraig Faulkner have flourished this campaign under those circumstances but they need the pressure out the field to be sustained. 
If the forwards and midfielders also limit attacking turnovers then Clare will struggle to score in transition. 
As things stand the division has become so open and unpredictable. I’m sure all the other teams near the top will be hoping Clare can do everyone a favour and defeat Mickey Graham's men.
However if Cavan’s work rate is where it should be then I can’t see that happening.  

Follow Michael Hannon on Twitter here.

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