McGleenan’s focus has altered along with the championship landscape
CALL it hard-nosed Tyrone pragmatism, but Mattie McGleenan would happily sacrifice a Cavan win today for a leg-up the qualifiers roster next month. It is a line of thought that is likely to be deemed sacrilegious in a county whose status in the game is defined by the 37 Anglo Celt Cups which they have garnered. McGleenan is more concerned about how Cavan fare now that the Championship’s landscape has been utterly altered. They face a daunting task today as they seek to become the first team since Down in 2010 to defeat Donegal on their home patch in Ballybofey. Perhaps it is because of the scale of the challenge that McGleenan wants his players to be mentally ready to embrace the consequences of defeat.
‘We’ve got to change that mentality that everything falls apart as soon as we lose an Ulster Championship match,’ he said.
‘If you can put me into the last two rounds of the qualifiers, where the Super 8s are coming into view, I’ll take it right now.’
Even more than the live television blackout which will dramatically diminish the profile of this summer’s provincial championships, that an Ulster manager would give up winning a preliminary round provincial draw to make it into the draw drum for the third round of qualifiers illustrates how the Super 8s round has changed mindsets.
It could be argued that McGleenan’s sense of direction is not the best, because a win today will provide Cavan with a far more accessible pathway to the Super 8s. If they can beat Donegal, his Cavan team who were promoted back to Division 1 in March, will find lower tier opposition in Derry (Division 4) and Down (Division 3) or Antrim (Division 4) obstructing their passage to what would be a first Ulster final appearance since 2001.
McGleenan is more concerned with how his players react to losing in a big game than finding the handiest route to the Championship’s new promised land. There is reason for that concern too. Cavan’s record in the All-Ireland qualifiers is pitiful – they have won just 12 out of 29 games and only once (2013) in the past 17 seasons have they negotiated the qualifiers to reach the last eight.
Last summer McGleenan saw his charges empty themselves against Monaghan in Ulster but they were unable to replicate that level of performance subsequently, ceding a six-point half-time lead against an injury-hit Tipperary in the qualifiers.
It exposed a character flaw in the group which McGleenan is desperate to address.
‘That was a dark day. I thought my team talk prepared the lads well for what was coming in the second-half, but there was 10 minutes when we just switched off. Tipperary got two goals as we were sleeping. There’s a learning curve there for me and for the team. After we lost to Monaghan in the Ulster Championship last year, I would say our performances dipped by 10 per cent, at least that’s what our statistics were saying anyway.
‘Whatever happens today, we’ve got to get our heads around that we’ve another game after this,’ he continued. ‘Hopefully it is Derry or if it is not, it will be a qualifier and we have to be ready for that too.’
The bigger summer picture has informed his approach to today’s game, not least in the temptation to rush back his best player Dara McVeety, who sustained a hamstring tear in the Division 2 League final defeat to Roscommon.
‘We could risk playing him, but that would also risk him damaging the hamstring so badly that he would not play again this year, and we’re not going to do that. He’ll be right in another couple of weeks and we’ll play him then,’ insisted McGleenan.
They will need McVeety this summer if the progress they made in the spring is to be validated. The ground has shifted since Cavan gained promotion to Division 1 in 2016 as to really prove your top-tier credentials you have to make the top-eight cut when it really matters, admits McGleenan.
‘I think it is going to be a four-year process to get Cavan to where I believe they can be. I’m two years into that process and I’m hoping that I can do well enough in this third year to get a fourth; maybe that’s where it will happen for us.
‘We have to stay in this summertime’s action for as long as we possibly can, whether that is Ulster Championship, though the qualifiers and even on to the Super 8s. Just in terms of trying to stay in Division 1 next spring, we need regular games and against the best teams too,’ he added.
‘I expect the Division 1 teams from this spring to be thereabouts in the Championship at the end, and if we are going to belong in Division 1, we need to be there as well.’