Graham is glad to see Cavan defy their critics
MICKEY Graham is much too gregarious a figure to say I told you so, but he was still grateful to the reporter who asked him how his mood had changed following Cavan’s third win in a row after an opening-round 12-point loss to Armagh that had many marking them down as relegation candidates.
Blending his metaphors seamlessly, he said: “The obituaries were written already after the Armagh game and the headstone was out on our graves. I don’t think that was fair. It was a bad night at the office for us but it opened our eyes and we knew we had a good bit of work to do to get back onto the horse.” And how.
They came the short distance to Fermanagh to a side that had been beaten there only once in the previous nine games, and all the previous matches in Division Two were working out at an 83% home win record.
An early goal on six minutes from Fermanagh’s Ultan Kelm was a sign of things to come for a side that carved out four goal chances in the first half.
Ryan McMenamin has Fermanagh playing a more expansive game than they had been doing under former boss Rory Gallagher and they put the Cavan backline under a lot of pressure.
What was miles off, however, was their radar. They hit 12 wides and dropped two short, whereas Cavan limited themselves to three wides.
McMenamin was stung by the decision of referee Sean Hurson, a fellow native of Tyrone, not to award a penalty when Ciaran Corrigan was pulled down by Padraig Faulkner when making a run.
“I thought the ref was a bit harsh on us all night, maybe a Tyrone factor or whatever, but whenever the umpire can see a penalty and a black card… when you’re a smaller county, you don’t get those calls,” he said.
“If it had been Tyrone or Dublin playing, it would’ve been a penalty.”
Where they fell down was their inability to deal with the good old-fashioned high ball into the square.
It cost them on 44 minutes when the excellent Oisin Kiernan delivered a dangerous high ball in and full-back Faulkner made it up the pitch to tap it down into the net.
Their second arrived on the hour mark when Ryan Connolly hoisted it in this time. Erne goalkeeper James McGrath couldn’t secure it, and Thomas Galligan was on hand to snap it up and blast home from almost on the line.
Cavan boss Graham was kind enough to acknowledge that such minor mistakes can cost a team badly.
“We conceded two goals like that in the first game against Armagh, kind of our own mistakes,” he said.
“We conceded one against Laois last week. It was always going to be a night where mistakes like that were going to be made, the conditions were so tough out there.
“You need those breaks, but we were working hard enough to earn them.”
He described the turnaround in form, stating: “They could have felt sorry for themselves, they could have said it wasn’t to be, but they’ve worked extremely hard at the training field.
“We ironed out a lot of mistakes from that day — you wouldn’t think it from the first half against Westmeath but since then we’ve turned a corner.
“They’re getting used to each other, we’ve a lot of new faces and they’re starting to blend together, which is encouraging.”
His opposite number was bitterly disappointed at the end.
“Your expectation is that you want to win. Probably people will be telling me I should be playing 15 behind the ball and try to eke out the results. You could do that but you could be a wee bit braver and go for it,” said McMenamin.
“We have talented players, it’s just getting them going and trying to cut down on the silly mistakes. You look at the likes of Eoin Donnelly who’s playing the best football in the last four or five years, so there’s some players really embracing it, and then there’s others we’re really going to have to look at and make calls. That’s the realities of life.”
Fermanagh have Armagh at home, a trip away to Clare and then Laois on the final day.
“We’re going to have to win all three of them. The last three games are going to be Championship football and that’s how you want it to be,” he added.
FERMANAGH: J McGrath; J Cassidy, C Cullen, K McDonnell; D McCusker, R O’Callaghan, Shane McGullion 0-1; E Donnelly, R Jones 0-2; A Breen 0-1, U Kelm 1-0, C Corrigan 0-3; Stephen McGullion, C Jones 0-2f, J McMahon
Subs: D McGurn for Stephen McGullion (56m), D Teague for McCusker (57m), E McManus 0-2f for C Jones (64m), E Sheils for McDonnell (66m)
CAVAN: R Galligan; G Smith, P Faulkner 1-0, K Brady; M Reilly, C Brady, O Kiernan 0-2; T Galligan 1-1, C Conroy 0-1mark; E Doughty, G McKiernan 0-5, 1xmark, C Madden; O Pierson 0-2,1f, J Smith, B Magee
Subs: S Murray for Doughty (42m), L Fortune for Magee (50m), R Connolly for O Pierson (56m), B Kelly for Madden (62m), L Buchanan for J Smith (74m)
Referee: Sean Hurson (Tyrone)