The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

This drawing of the Ulster counties against each other is ridiculous now. The whole internet knew last night Donegal would get Armagh.

Larry doing the “draw” and not shown once on the live feed.

They’ll have momentum after battling through two games with extra time but the bottom line is they are a Division 4 team who didn’t get promoted whereas Westmeath are Division 3 and Offaly only down from 2.

😀😀😀

Pity that Armagh v Donegal isn’t in Breffni.

Donegal people reckon that Clones is too far, another half hour and €8 of fuel to Cavan would be a too much altogether.

Not a fan of Croke Park especially when it is empty and would have preferred to travel anywhere else. I think they should have left these games out of Croke Park until the final. I know they are trying to raise the profile of the tournament but i think this will do the opposite. The players will want to play it there and the more games our lads get there the better though.

Even though I won't thumb my nose at the chance to see Cavan play in Croke Park, I completely agree. It is great for the players but there is likely to be zero atmosphere for this double header. A fair few people will only go to see their team. If I didn't have kids with me, I probably would stay for the other game (and confirm all Cavan stereotypes by getting as much value out of the day as possible 😉). I'd prefer a packed out Brewster for a game like that rather than a more or less empty Croke park.

Any chance the GAA will have a bit of sense and let kids in free for this? It's going to be a very costly day for fans in terms of travel and hopefully with another day out in Dublin to follow.

When we played them in the league we did get a bit of luck, but we also were missing Thomas galligan, Conor brady Martin reilly ciaran brady Luke fortune and killian Clarke only came on for the last ten minutes and Gerry smith only came on for the last 5 minutes,

Moynagh & Conor Madden were both taking part in some running and practice drills on the pitch before the team came out on Sunday so you’d hope both are near a return too.

Ray Galligan, Faulkner, Cian Madden, Thomas Galligan & Gearoid made the Tailteann Cup team of the week. Did Madden play that well? Took me by surprise to see him there.

Didnt think Ray deserved his place either, had an off day at frees and while his kick outs were good Fermanaghs press was pathetic at times leaving men free on the half way line. Cian had an ok game, that was a strange one. I thought Clarke was more deserving of a place on that team myself. Cavan should have much to much for Sligo who are stumbling along. They made an awful blunder bringing on Niall Murphy against London even though he had a hamstring injury, he went off again within 5 minutes so its hard to see how he would feature. Alan Reilly has started to step up and he could be dangerous but untested against backs like ours. It is really in Cavans hands, perform to the levels they did against Fermanagh and it should be a relatively comfortable win.

I thought McLoughlin hard done by if Madden made it. He even kicked a point.

Madden really should be reaching a decent physical condition by now. Is he not around 22/23 by now? I know Mickey Graham did want to call him in with Pierson when they were both still U20 but Madden held off.

Evan Finnegan seems to have gone from starting in the League to not even making match day squads.

Personally, I would have picked Carolan, but easily Oisin Kiernan or Jason would have been ahead of Madden for team of the week. Thought Conor Brady had a good game too, kicks the ball in well and would like him to back himself more and take some more scores on.

I will stand corrected but think this is his first year on the panel. I seem to think the McKenna cup game versus Armagh was his debut. Mickey Graham says it usually takes a year to get up to the conditioning required for senior level. You can see a world of a difference in Paddy Lynch from last year. Not every player develops physically at the same rate either. As I said before, he's not there yet but there clearly is talent if he continues to develop.

I agree about the free taking we have struggled there for years , since Ronan Carolan really, Micky lyng was a good free taker and then he had to stop taking them because they were causing injury I think, next was Niall Murray started taking them out of his hand in 2019.

In 2019 we kept rotating frees between Ray, Gearoid even Mackey when he was on the field. It wasn't until the Armagh game (possibly) the replay that Niall Murray started taking them and more or less had a 100% record.

For what it is worth, Ray is way more consistent that he used to be. His kick-outs are generally very good. I would say at Breffni his free-taking percentages are very high (he's had at least two games this year at home with 100% records) and kicked some wonder scores in Carrick on Shannon. But the funny thing, I think you can tell from his body language whether he is on fire. On Sunday when he was coming up for the first free I said to one of the lads "he doesn't look like he wants this, I think he is going to miss". By the third one you could see him looking for a runner to avoid taking it on and ended up rushing his kick and completely butchering it. Similarly in Croke Park for the division four final you just felt he wasn't going to have one of his days. But let's be honest, his off days are thankfully fairly rare.