I started this thread to move the general analysis and fallout from the match away from a thread named for one player. I don't think it's fair to the player concerned, even though most of the comments are in his favour.

I was very surprised with Terry's demeanour during the game. He seemed to have accepted very early that we weren't at the races and accepted defeat too easily. His comments since about our lack of physicality seem to confirm this. I think the fact that he has a long term contract has allowed him to write off this year and build for the future. That may be the correct approach, but I thought Donegal were vulnerable for a while in the first half and that we could have put them under more pressure than we did.

Anyway, we're in familiar territory now with 6 weeks to plan for the next game. Two areas of last Sunday concerned me most. Firstly, our defensive tackling was very poor. I don't accept that this was due to a lack of physicality as offered by Terry. I think he selected defenders that can't perform the most basic requirement of tackling. They were all keen to get on the ball in the loose and make themselves available for endless cross-field passes, but very few tackles resulted in turnovers. Question marks have already been raised here about some of the backs and I don't need to add to them. The Mgnt team had a stats guy feeding them the info so there's no excuse for ignoring this weakness. In their post match de-brief, they need to explain to themselves why their best basic defender, Joshua Hayes, was left on the bench at a time when they needed him most. Look at the Captain's answer in the match program to the "player who train's best." Considering the poor performances of three backs in particular on the field, this was very strange.

Secondly, Dublin demonstrated last year how to beat the Donegal version of blanket defending, and they did it almost by accident when they introduced Kevin McMenamin. You have to create a double overlap, i.e. get past not just one player, but two. Apart from McKeever, we didn't have the confidence to break through the first tackle, never mind the second, and anytime we attempted, we got caught in possession. Again, I don't accept Terry's explanation that this was due to a lack of strength. I believe it was due to a lack of tactical planning. We have the type of players that could do this if they are encouraged and coached to do it, e.g. Niall Smith, Bud, Jack Brady, Niall McDermott, Kevin Tierney etc. Any of these lads hitting the blanket wall at pace and purpose, should have been able to get through. It wasn't part of the plan, but it should have been in my humble opinion. We can't continue to operate a game plan based on running up to the edge of the opposition, meeting resistance, and getting pushed back to easily. Not when we have players with the required basic skill to find their way through.

So the next steps? My hope would be that we will use the next six weeks to work on basic defending, dispossessing the opposition and stopping them in their tracks within the rules, selecting the best players available to us, unlike Sunday, and attacking with purpose and determination to create double overlaps.

Sorry lads, didn't expect this post to be as long as it ended up.

ondforty (Cavan) - Posts: 471 - 22/05/2012 09:44:40    1177779

next step bring in other players their is far better players fast forwards who will run straight at goal and take on a man and who will put de ball over de bar, i can think of two coner forwards who never got a chance and id put my house on it de make an impact, wee ave no body how can score can take long distance points apart from keatin, no run to run straight at goal!

william14 (Cavan) - Posts: 14 - 22/05/2012 10:08:43    1177797

cavan had donegal under pressure in the first 10 mins because they were giving in first time quick ball to full forward line, then that stoped and they started to play across the field and backwards letting donegal get numbers back, the way for this cavan team is to play defenders in defence and forwards as forwards and long ball in to full forwards who are able to win them or draw fouls. we have great midfielders but are inclined to hold on and carry the ball too much, there is the makings of a great team here but are playing to negitive.

blueman1903 (Cavan) - Posts: 885 - 22/05/2012 10:16:57    1177804

The game on Sunday lasted 70 mins, we need a lot longer than that to compete with Donegal.

Given the time required we will more than compete

ochonlir (Cavan) - Posts: 4343 - 22/05/2012 14:22:00    1178098

ondforty,

Good post and similar to what I was thinking. Regarding the defence, I cannot understand why a defended would run alongside an attacker and just stick out his hand in the hope that he might knock the ball from his grasp. Some of them didn't try to block the forward's way at all but stood aside and ran beside him. It's no wonder that we conceded 11 goals in the league campaign (only Kilkenny and Wexford who were promoted) conceded more. Even before the league started I was asking what coaches were working with the defence as we were very poor last year. It seems that not much is being done in this area although in fairness we only conceded 1 goal, a penalty, last Sunday and I thought the fullback line was good enough but the half-backs were poor. We need to get the best available defence coach in to work with the team.

Cavan_Slasher (Cavan) - Posts: 10253 - 22/05/2012 16:52:11    1178226

I was very surprised with Terry's demeanour during the game. He seemed to have accepted very early that we weren't at the races and accepted defeat too easily. His comments since about our lack of physicality seem to confirm this. I think the fact that he has a long term contract has allowed him to write off this year and build for the future.

Strongly agree with this. As far as I'm concerned, there was no big problem with a lack of physicality in our side.

Bananas (Cavan) - Posts: 73 - 22/05/2012 17:25:03    1178268

i too dont think Donegal were alot stronger than we were, i think our biggest problem was responsibility, nobody seemed to want the responsibility of having to kick that 50 yard ball into Keating. We started well 100% because Keating was roasting the FB, and if we kept the ball going in quick we would have had more of a chance. I would seriously question how the manager kept R. Flanagan on the field and too McKeever off. The subs in general played well.
Also Donegal are a very hard team to beat, I really hope we get someone on a par with ourselves in the BD as although disappointed i thought Cavan showed some good points

milhouse (Cavan) - Posts: 469 - 22/05/2012 18:16:27    1178325

until Terry Hyland explains why he left McKiernan on the field towards the end when he was on his knees, why he substituted Mckeever and Bud I am of the opinion that he is not a very good manager. And it pains me to say it because I thought he was.

s goldrick (Cavan) - Posts: 5524 - 22/05/2012 18:18:24    1178328

I think the team that lined out was too light and too small. At times Donegal just walkeed through us
to compete with teams like donegal a physically stronger team needs to be picked.
For the next day i would bring in these players:

1. J.Reilly
2. O.Minagh
3. P.OReilly
4. K.Clarke
5. C.Monagh
6. A.Gaynor
7. T.Corr
8. R.Cullivan
9. D.Givney
10. M.McKeever
11. D.McKiernan
12. G.McKiernan
13. N.McDermott
14. E.Keating
15. M.Dunne

this would be a much tougher and pysical side

97Cavans (Cavan) - Posts: 451 - 22/05/2012 18:34:46    1178340

Onthe forty: Good post. Cant disagree with an awful lot of what you said.
The one thing in life as in sport you will never get 2 people, managers, coaches or selectors to agree on what team to pick. I admire Terry but I would still pick a slightly different team. I started a thread about a month ago of "A team to Topple Tir Conaill" and it is amazing the amount of people who completely disagreed and others slightly. The usual suspects of course would not pick a team but prefer to shout abuse from afar.
Where do we go from here?
Well I for one was not overly dissapointed with Sundays performance. With a very young team you can only achieve so much. Sadly we "do not have" a large group of older players to shoulder the hits while these lads develop. But we have to stick with them. They will improve, maybe slowly at first, but I can see a major challenge being mounted in about 2 years. For Cavan folk this is a long time but there is no other option.
Looking back on Sunday I thought we should have had Niall Smith , Kevin Tierney (amazing he dident start) and Barry Reilly if fit , starting. I really believe that the best form of defence is attack and Donegal looked uncomfortable when we ran at them with pace. Some of our forwards selected were intended to be used as stoppers and sadly they were found out.
Our inside forward line looked on fire in the first 15 mins but strangely we changed our game plan and decided not to hit the quick ball in. It seemed obvious to me that a fit Ray Cullivan would have been a better asset at m/field than a slow unfit player!! Also did someone not notice the Donegal short kick-out to no. 4??
The two young ex minors were smashing at the back. Definitely 2 for the future. But a lot of the backs played very well.
So for the play-offs I would be optimistic. We have a class full forward in Keating and a stand out m/fielder in Givney. Lets build a bit of pace around these lads and we could surprise a few people.

BreffniDub (None) - Posts: 377 - 22/05/2012 19:00:31    1178360

was martin dunne injured when cavan played donegal?

lifebuoy (Cavan) - Posts: 628 - 22/05/2012 21:19:19    1178481

was martin dunne injured when cavan played donegal?
lifebuoy , 22/05/2012 at 21:19

YES

The Quiet Man (Cavan) - Posts: 4602 - 23/05/2012 10:38:37    1178605

was martin dunne injured when cavan played donegal?
lifebuoy , 22/05/2012 at 21:19

YES
seanorinn , 23/05/2012 at 10:38

Where or when did he get injured?

Breffnisbest (Cavan) - Posts: 475 - 23/05/2012 12:54:19    1178741

Ondforty.... Good post but the most important failing we have you fail to mention.... Wayward shooting...shooting at the target was very very poor last Sunday. Now whether we play off the shoulder, or double up on defending or attacking it's all going to be in vain with shooting like that we saw Sunday.. Why can average forwards not practice and perfect kicking points of the instep instead of trying this fancy outside of the boot stuff????? Watching too much telly is the only answer I can come up with..3 basics were lacking on Sunday. We won very little 50-50 ball. Distribution was poor. And shooting was woefull. That won't be put right in the gym.. Back to basics over the next 6 weeks. I don't often agree with Sean o Rinn but YES he is right , Donegal were there for the taking last Sunday.

richiej (UK) - Posts: 1430 - 23/05/2012 14:12:03    1178827

To put the record straight,martin dunne WAS NOT injured and that the truth.again our best players are not wanted

gaelsutd (Cavan) - Posts: 602 - 23/05/2012 14:16:34    1178832

To put the record straight,martin dunne WAS NOT injured and that the truth.again our best players are not wanted
gaelsutd , 23/05/2012 at 14:16


Are you 100% sure ?????

The Quiet Man (Cavan) - Posts: 4602 - 23/05/2012 14:31:40    1178850

You weren't even at the game Richie were you???

fredflint (Cavan) - Posts: 1485 - 23/05/2012 15:10:27    1178885

Fredflint I was at the game! But I won't be at next one !and speaking to genuine football ppl that follow Cavan all their lives they wernt impressed. And neither was I.

richiej (UK) - Posts: 1430 - 23/05/2012 15:34:43    1178907

OK Richie, prove it. What happened at the start of the 2nd half of the minor match that the crowd thought was very funny?

fredflint (Cavan) - Posts: 1485 - 23/05/2012 15:42:24    1178913

Martin Dunne got a bad injury in the Antrim game and wasn't fully fit for last Sunday.

How can anyone come to the conclusion that Donegal were there for the taking? We never found ourselves in position where we could have won the game. Our first flurry of scores came from good individual play by Keating and Jack Brady. After that Donegal ramped up the pressure and comprehensively outplayed us and we didn't score for almost 30 minutes. They took the foot off the gas then and our lads, to their credit, took the game to them again refusing to give up.

If Donegal were there for the taking, it wasn't by this Cavan team. Face up to the reality of where this panel of players is at. Not yet near a level where we can shock Donegal but with hard work they will reach that level. Claiming that this loss was attributable to the team selection or tactics is complete nonsense.

Inactive x5 (Cavan) - Posts: 1452 - 23/05/2012 15:58:05    1178934