The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

It's sounds like they are just trying to be awkward.

Id imagine he will stay with meath anyway but I would have no problem with it its not like we have a supply of scoring forwards or consistent free takers.

Couple of Meath lads I have spoken to reckon he could actually move. Apparently there is a big divide between the North & South Meath lads in the Meath panel.

I know the PRO of one Meath club tweeted when Cavan won the Ulster Final that they had more players from North Meath on the pitch than their own county had the night before in the Leinster Final!

Conor Smith is one I think as he had a groin strain. He and Martin Reilly are due back at training next week.

The team selected above is too defensive IMO. We need to unearth forwards so why would we be going into games against Division Four teams with two experienced backs (Oisin Kiernan & McLoughlin) in the HF line?

My team would be:

Galligan

Fortune, Faulkner, McLoughlin

Oisin Kiernan, Conor Brady, Clarke

Galligan, James Smith

Gerry Smith, Gearoid, Oisin Brady

Conor Smith, Paddy Lynch, Cormac O’Reilly

I know people talk about complacency but at the end of the day it’s Division 4 Football. The bulk of these lads have played Div 1 so you would be hoping to try and empty the bench early in games and get minutes into the players on the bench like Cian Reilly, Finnegan, Brady the Ramor keeper, Caoimhin & Fionntan Reilly, Paul Smith & Jack McKenna.

At the end of the day, Galligan, Faulkner, McLoughlin, Gerry Smith, Gearoid and other experienced players are going to gain very little from Div 4.

I would have killian brady there, If I was picking the team , I would go with

1 ray

2 Luke. 3 Padraig. 4 killian brady

5 Gerry smith 6conor brady 7 Jason

8 James smith 9 Thomas galligan

10 Oisin brady 11 G mac. 12 Oisin K

13 cormac reilly 14 paddy Lynch 15 Conor madden

I feel this time of the year with heavy ground killian brady can be excellent, I kind of forgot to put in killian Clarke, need to get him in , il have to drop someone to bench, 😩

Agree on Gunner but he's not getting any younger and it's a young man's game he plays with the high intensity physical stuff. Granted he's teak tough but not the biggest man in the world. Agree on the forwards as well, we need players to really lay down a marker and make the jersey their own. Hasn't happened so far. Whether the quality is not there or the system/service is not getting the best out of them remains to be seen.

I don't think we're as strong 1-9 as you may think. Our relegation from Division 3 last year was as much a result of slack tackling and getting cut open time and time again as it was from our poor returns up front. Plus we look very slow in working the ball out of defence. And I think people tend to gloss over the shot stopping exploits of Galligan the last few years. He's been very busy and saved our blushes often. And our midfield options are limited. I wish Conor Brady in a blue jersey was the same one I see in the green and red but he's not as involved or imposing and looks a yard short of the pace.

It will be interesting to see how we go this year. I'm not over confident but at the same time we cannot be as bad as last year. I've read a lot of different excuses for last year but long and short of it we were brutal and MG has been cut a lot of slack. On paper it might be a lower grade again and theoretically easier to develop on the forward element of our game but if we play anything like we did last year we are in for a very rude awakening.

1. Ray Galligan,
2. McLaughlin
3. Faulkner
4. Clarke
5. Kiernan
6. Conor Brady
7. Gerry Smith
8. Thomas Galligan
9. James Smith
10. Oisin Brady
11. Gearoid
12. Cormac O Reilly
13. Martin Reilly
14. Patrick Lynch
15. Conor Madden

Given that we need to hit the ground running, that's the starting 15 i would go with in Carrick On Shannon. I've no idea on the fitness of Conor Brady or Martin Reilly, but i would go for the above. Start with high intensity for the first game, be ready for a Leitrim team with new management who would be only too happy to turn us over.

Obviously with the Gunner, Conroy, Fortune, Finnegan and Moynagh there is more cover in the backs so we could see Gerry Smith for example deployed further forward. Definitely shouldn't be Jason!

I would pick Brady over Conroy or Moynagh based on form in the championship. Chris Conroy is a very reliable player for Cavan but by his standards had a very poor championship for Lavey. I saw Moynagh in an intermediate championship game for Drumgoon and he was easily the best player on show, but nothing to the level Brady performed at for Gowna.

Like I said, we have options there (Clarke had one of his best performances for Cavan against Armagh in the 2019 Ulster semi replay at centre half) and we are lighter on proven options up front.

I wonder whether we might see Clarke or the Gunner at midfield to partner James Smith. We don't know if Thomas Galligan is fully fit and even if both Smith and Galligan are fit, you might see one kept in reserve and a more defensive partner in the middle to balance the natural style of Smith and Galligan to drive forward. I would love to see both of them fit and start and become the dominant centre midfield pairing for years to come.

Conor Smith

Pierce Smith

Stephen Smith

Luke Fortune

Thomas Galligan

Darragh Kennedy (some years ago)

Mattie McKenna

Thomas Edward Donohoe

Fergal O Rourke may have skirted the panel for a while, not sure

have we not seen Moynagh solo into traffic and turn the ball over enough of times ? No doubting he is a talented footballer but he can be completely brainless

Moynagh has been a great servant. By no means perfect and it can be easy to focus on the negatives where familiarity is concerned but overall I'd say he's been above average for us. In a similar way some people tend to highlight the weaknesses in McKiernan's game but when he is gone he will leave a massive void.

It would be great to think that some of the potential replacements are upgrades on what we have/had but as yet they haven't stepped up. Club form however promising doesn't mean much if you can't bring it through to IC. So jury still out. Put it this way, when we were flying up through the divisions and competing with the top teams in the country Conor Moynagh's name was one of the first on the tam sheet. We're now debating if some of these other lads should be even starting on a Division 4 team.

Is this tactic of filling our half forward line with half backs, when we're going to be playing in Division 4, not a bit of a junior football thing? It's a tactic I would expect our opponents to be deploying against us. Division 4 is probably going to see plenty of blanket defences so why would we go into the games with the likes of Jason McLoughin and Conor Brady half forward? Is Jaosn going to kick a long range score to beat a blanket?

The worrying thing is both Gearoid and Martin are possibly in their last year(s).

Bar Stephen Smith and maybe Luke Fortune, that seems to be a fairly injury prone set of lads.