THEY’LL TRY TO TY US IN KNOTS
Cavanagh fears Farney will choke the life out of the Red Hands attack
SEAN CAVANAGH has predicted a low scoring arm wrestle between two evenly matched teams with Ulster ambitions.
That won’t be music to armchair fans’ ears though it’s probably spot on, given the huge prize at stake. Whoever wins will be fancied to claim the Anglo Celt Cup.
And while Tyrone wrote the play-book on blanket defending, Monaghan are no strangers to pulling 14 men behind the ball either when necessary.
Three-time All-ireland winner Cavanagh said: “The danger is whenever you have a game of this magnitude that you’ll revert to type A, what has been done in the last few years in terms of the way Tyrone played. And Monaghan will probably be similar to that as well.
“It will probably be quite similar to last Sunday’s Mayo-galway game where it’ll be attritional and strategic and defensive and teams trying almost not to lose, as opposed to trying to win. It’ll be interesting to see whether Tyrone actually cut loose that little bit more.”
Cavanagh fears Tyrone forwards like Lee Brennan and Mark Bradley could be swallowed up by the Monaghan defence, leaving it up to their counter attacking experts to grab the crucial scores.
The former Footballer of the Year (left) said: “You could be back to relying on Petey Harte, Mattie Donnelly and Niall Sludden to drive the ball through the middle. What Dublin did well against us last August was that they stopped those runners coming through.
“We had no answer at that point, we couldn’t get the ball out, the ball wasn’t getting into the hands of the guys we needed to get it into.
“Malachy O’rourke is an astute man, I suspect he’ll have a similar plan for how Monaghan
play. I’m sure he’s watched that Dublin game a hundred times over.”
Cavanagh added: “Also, no one knows who is going to be drawn against who in the qualifiers this year, it’s a lot more uncertain. You have that potential of maybe catching a big name along the line. The winner will probably end up in an Ulster final against Donegal, the loser a tricky task and potentially an early Championship exit. That’s what’s at stake really.”