The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

I find Niblock excellent. The BBC GAA Social podcast is brilliant and he is a brilliant interviewer. Sidebottom the only negative on BBC coverage. Tries to be funny too much.

Very disappointed with the result yesterday

The first half was the best football I'd seen us play in years including 2020

Small margins win big games and without sounding like sour grapes the ref had a huge hand in Donegals win, missed peno call, handy frees, Murphy push 1st goal yes maybe we still might of lost but we'd surely have been in it come the last few minutes

The goals were unlucky but avoidable

It feels like we should be taking so many positives out of the game but it just feels like a hollow moral victory with no back door

I was half excited about the tailteann Cup but now looking at the proposed format it would seem its another farce

Then we have Tynan raving on Facebook about us being favourites for it... Sure what could go wrong

Anyway ill take the positives and hope for the best in tailteann Cup but this was a big big opportunity for us that we just fell short

If Cavan are playing and I can't go, if there is a choice between RTE and BBC, then it's BBC anyday. Yes, the Beeb Ulster are biased towards the 6 counties, but the likes of Clarke and McConville in particular actually know what they are talking about and you get the feeling that they actually do some research. I think Niblock, even though naturally pro-Antrim, is a very good presenter.

The likes of McStay and Spillane are trading on past glories. They clearly can't even be bothered doing any sort of research so it is simple nonsense like "division 3 beats division 2" and so on. Pat Spillane has probably seen Cavan play once every couple of years when RTE cover their games.

That RTE always focus on Gearoid is (a) Gearoid is an extremely important player for Cavan and has been for a decade and (b) the RTE pundits are too lazy to find out that Cavan (shock! Horror!) actually have other players. It's not unique to Cavan and I guarantee that when any other county outside the top 8 play, they do the same thing.

I know how you feel. When we lost to Donegal in 2019, it hurt less. And let's be honest, it was a trimming. I left Clones thinking that we were a million miles off winning Ulster- in terms of conditioning, players the whole lot. That was reinforced against Tyrone. Prior to that I was thinking Mickey Graham would sprinkle the Mullinaghta magic on us, and let's be honest, any Cavan fan was feeling that after the wins over Monaghan and successive games in the sunshine in Clones against Armagh. But leaving Clonest that day, i was more or less resigned to our fate.

Whereas I'm still in a funk over Sunday (so i can't imagine how hurt the players and management are). We played really well and it wasn't that it still wasn't good enough. It came down to fine margins. The history books will record a 6 point win and the reports will say that Donegal had more experience or that bit more in quality, when in reality that slight margin of luck (and let's be honest, poor decision making to deal with that) that a miscued point effort, a nudge and the ball precisely lands on O'Donnell's foot and the game was lost. The second goal almost was immaterial.

Prior to the first goal, we were after clawing our way back to level the scores and I felt with 10 mins to go it was anyone's and that we would be in the mix at the very death and that goal (and the nature of it) just floored us. It wasn't as if it was a moment of brilliance, that Donegal opened us up and you could say "yep, when they needed to, they just upped the gears", but a wonky shot that we didn't deal with that broke so unkindly. That's without the penalty and Conor Lane deciding to give some soft frees. Hard to take.

And as for the Tailteann, I really hope the players do pick themselves us and decide to lay down a marker. No point saying we shouldn't be there, and with no disrespect to the other teams, but much like division four it's hard to say "brilliant a semi final against..." and get fired up like you would for a game like Sunday. The one thing we could learn from is Roscommon, who as a panel got accustomed to winning things (often at our expense) and that has helped them when it has come into the mix for Provincial titles. Let's try and win two trophies in a year, even if this one is far beneath what this group of players aspired to when they were putting in the hard yards for the last months and years.

New York are travelling over.

McStay was referring to the game in question. James Smith was occupying the full forward position for long periods on Sunday, rarely operating at midfield but McStay didn't seem to realise.

I'd ask the people of Roscommon about McStay being an ''excellent'' manager if I were you. They might disagree. I'm not sure if 3 years as an intercounty manager amounts to ''proven'' either. The All-Ireland club title he won was with a club who were already there or thereabouts (they were beaten finalist and semi finalists). Both they and Roscommon had been successful when he arrived so he didn't develop or foster success like, say, a Mickey Graham with Mulinaghta. Right place, right time perhaps.

He's the same Kevin McStay who commentated on us playing Donegal off the pitch in December 2020 yet wrote in his column ''whoever wins Donegal v Armagh has a tap-in of a semi-final against Cavan or Antrim''. I don't believe he's a good pundit and I don't respect his opinion - the opinion above was highlighted by Cavan supporters on Twitter ahead of the game. We're not here to discuss the merits of McStay regardless.

We'll go back to ''Anyway, the main crux of my point, that the media overstate McKiernan's importance to the team, has clearly gone over your head because you've argued your point by referencing two members of said media''.

I'll await your response as god forbid someone else might have the last word.

None of us know what is going on in training and lets be honest, for example, Conor Madden has been poor ever since 2020. You have to earn your place on the match day panel and only Mickey and his selectors know what is going on in training in terms of who is ripping it up and who isnt. Cian Madden was an exciting minor, best player on that team in my opinion. But he was small and he still needs time to bulk up physically. I think he will be a excellent player for us and while he may not have influenced the game in an attacking sense on Sunday I thought he worked extremely hard. Maybe there were injuries too, we will just have to trust Mickey picked the best of what he had in terms of injuries and who was on form.

I see this tailteann cup is now a North/South thing which I never heard off before so we will be playing the same old teams again - Fermanagh no doubt. That also means we will be getting tougher games I would imagine.

I agree that subs should have been made earlier. That pace of championship football is hard to keep up with, especially for younger players. Mickey Hannon said that years ago.

In terms of Madden or Cormac Reilly doing nothing, that's not a fair reflection. Cormac set up a clear penalty and also kicked two wides. Now, that does show what anyone watching him this year would say- an honest player, very strong, can ride a tackle but needs to start converting more. Also he does a huge amount of tracking back which is part and parcel of the game now. Madden also kicked a wide (narrowly), did a huge amount of tracking and as always, carries the ball forward with his head up and does kick ball in. I also agree that he needs time, but we have to blood these young lads at some stage and find out not only if they have the skills but also the temperament. I think with another year or two of conditioning, Cian Madden will be a brilliant county footballer (assuming he sticks with it and keeps developing).

Conor Moynagh isn't a quick player- that isn't due to fitness. He was one of our best players yesterday.

Mickey Graham was very honest in 2021 that we needed to take time to invest in younger forwards. A few people online were castigating him for doing so but it clearly was THE area that we needed to improve on. He's done that and the patience his team has reaped dividends in Patrick Lynch.

And in terms of forwards used in the league, it was mostly Madden, Lynch and Reilly. TED had a few minutes against Tipp at home (and did well, but that was all he got- in fairness he was mostly with Denn). Oisin Brady started against Leitrim and Carlow but he definitely picked up a knock. Conor Smith injured for most of it. Conor Madden started against Leitrim but i think that was it. He got a few minutes in the final against Tipp and a handful of minutes elsewhere- so either he's struggling with fitness or Mickey isn't seeing what he needs to see in training.

Stephen Smith started two games i think (Waterford and the league final). He was as good as he's ever been in the league final but he's never nailed down a spot and he's been in there since 2019.

I'd have to agree with your comments that criticizing Faulkner was harsh. I thought he had his best game for Cavan in some time. Of the more senior players, I think the majority did well and I only had some disappointment in Gearoid who, bar a five to ten minute purple patch, didn't influence the game enough, and Killian Clarke, who, in my opinion, had an absolute nightmare. Clarke was directly responsible for at least 1-2 between the goal at the end and the frees he gave away in the first half.

You would have to look at our defence and wonder if we need a bit more pace in it. Donegal had fast players cutting in from the side and I felt at times they got away from our backline too easily. That said, we played an open game so our backs didn't have the advantage generally of extra players to close off the space when Donegal countered.

Well the media opinion now seems to be that we just need to turn up to win the Tailteann Cup:

Ciarán Murphy: Cavan can set the tone for the Tailteann Cup (irishtimes.com)

Martin Breheny: 'Why Cavan are the cuckoo in the Tailteann Cup’s flimsy nest' - Independent.ie

Oisin Brady seems to have dropped off the face of the planet. I thought he was featuring for Killygarry in the League so perhaps he was one of the younger players involved in the disciplinary breach earlier in the campaign.

You'd have to expect us to be able to get out of Division 3 next year. I know we struggled through 4 this year but the only explanation I can see is that the lads were training heavily throughout it. In games like the Wexford one it was nearly like Mickey pulled them in at half time and said, there's no point hammering these or we'll have a few newspaper articles written about us so lighten off lads.

As was raised on this forum earlier in this season, after the top 3/4 in Division 2, there is very little difference in quality and anyone can beat anyone. I would firmly believe we are good enough to be in at least that top 3/4 when we are concentrating on a competition and on our game.

My understanding is that 4 of the U20s gone in are Niall Carolan, Daragh Lovett (as per this board), Cian Reilly and Fionntain O'Reilly. Anyone know the fifth?

Is Lovett old enough? Or is he just in training?

Conor Smith needs to get a run of games in. Any time he gets fit for the county, he's injured by the next game. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see him playing more than 90% of the other forwards in the county but he hasn't been able to string a couple of intercounty games together yet.

Could make for some cracking games on Friday!

many word on McVeety Cavan_King? He’s not played for your lot for weeks- was it only a flying visit?

So did he just resign with Crosserlough to play one game or is he coming back again for the Championship?