Preview: There will be a kick in Cavan but will it be enough?

Ulster SFC preview

Those who played under Mickey Graham at club level often chime on one particular note: for Graham, championship is where it's at.

One former club player we spoke to this week suggested that Graham was never overly bothered about the league and would always aim to have something up his sleeve by the time the real stuff came around.

He produced it last year as Cavan, written off in all quarters bar this one (brag alert), upset Monaghan in Kingspan Breffni. They then beat Armagh in a high-scoring replay but were dismantled by Donegal, despite putting a brave face on things in the second half, and were filleted by Tyrone in the subsequent qualifier. In hindsight, maybe Cavan would have been better off losing narrowly to Armagh and coming away with credit.

That sounds defeatist but hear us out: the gap to Donegal and then Tyrone was just too great and the sense was that being exposed to their level extinguished all hope for some Cavan players.

Dara McVeety, Conor Moynagh and Killian Clarke, with 20 years’ service between them, all stepped aside. Cian Mackey hung up his boots and at least one more experienced player, we are told, had to be coaxed back.

A first Ulster final appearance in 18 years should have been the start of a new chapter but, such was the crushing nature of the two defeats that finished the season, it seemed more like a full stop.

Coming into this campaign, the league started with a disastrous loss to Armagh in the Athletic Grounds but Cavan subsequently turned it around with three good wins against Westmeath, Laois and Fermanagh. Things were looking good but a careless home loss to Clare on March 1 slowed the momentum before the lockdown put a stop to it altogether. On the resumption, the loss to Kildare – a side Cavan haven’t beaten in any grade of football in donkey’s years – in Newbridge could be forgiven but the home defeat to a decimated Roscommon was inexcusable.

What was most galling was that this was a very experienced Cavan side with a median appearance figure of 63 to their name coming into the game. The old trope of it being a young team or a side in transition couldn’t cut it this time.

This was a seasoned outfit with two rookies, a handful of very well established players and a fair number of veterans with a decade behind them at this level.

Suffering relegation on six points was slightly unlucky but it has happened four times since 2016, three of those in Division 2.

Coming as it did just a week out from a daunting championship encounter with Monaghan, who retained top flight status for the sixth year in succession, it seemed disastrous. But as former Cavan boss Terry Hyland was wont to say, things are never as good or as bad as they may appear from the outside looking in.

Cavan are rated as 10/3 outsiders for this game which is probably the longest odds the county has ever been for a championship match with Monaghan. If nothing else - and, yes, maybe we are clutching at straws - this is classic ambush territory.

Graham’s side cannot be as poor as they looked on Sunday. Ten of the starting team were on the field four years ago when Cavan beat Galway to get promoted to Division 1; they are good footballers, certainly not all playing well, but form is temporary.

While much has been made of the misfiring attack, it must be noted that Cavan were the second-highest scoring team in the division. However, the defence was the leakiest.

That doesn’t necessarily absolve the forward line of blame – there is a sense that they need 10 chances to score four or five times – but it is an interesting stat nonetheless.

Can Cavan stun the nation and get a win on Saturday? Of course. This is football and this is Cavan vs Monaghan – anything can happen.

To do so won’t require any reinvention of the wheel. The defence must tighten up, with Padraig Faulkner probably required to put a straitjacket on Conor McManus again. And at the other end, chances will have to be taken which will probably mean some forward is going to need to play out of their skin and shoot a big individual tally.

It could be anyone – a championship debutant like Conor Smith, maybe, or Cormac O’Reilly (above), whose father Damien made his bow against Monaghan too, remember. Or perhaps Gearoid McKiernan will turn in a career performance or Conor Madden will get a couple of goals.

These are all possible but not probable. On all known form, Monaghan should win but there surely must be a kick in Cavan and their management, who will be feeling the pressure after successive relegations. If Cavan are in the game in the final 10 minutes, it’s anyone’s. Getting there will be the challenge.

Verdict: Monaghan by two