Gavin Cummiskeyprofiles Cavan's task as they gear up for a bout with Armagh at Breffni Park on Sunday
LAST YEAR Cavan collapsed early. The St Brendan's club in Chicago had a hand in it as they enticed Seánie Johnston, Paul Brady and Martin Cahill across the Atlantic to experience the obvious perks of playing ball under the hard mid-western sun.
Cavan were subsequently, and comfortably, removed in round one of the qualifiers by Mayo.
A clearly disgusted Donal Keoghan condemned the three lads to exile from the Cavan blue while he was manager. That rigid declaration has since been retracted. All three featured in the victory over Antrim on May 18th, although world handball champion Brady is hors-de-combat again for Sunday's season defining showdown with Armagh in the familiar confines of Breffni Park. Brady is attending to his first love.
Seánie Johnston is back though and in fine form. Yesterday, he was in Dublin to pick up the GPA player of the month award for May, along with Dublin hurler David O'Callaghan, in recognition of the eight points he posted against Antrim.
Before seeking his opinion on Armagh, last summer's exodus and the relatively quick absolution period is addressed. "No, it wasn't tough at all, I had a very relaxing summer," Johnston began. "It was very good, so it was. Coming back there wasn't much said about it to be honest. I just met Donal and he wanted me back in so I came back in. I've enjoyed it since and it's been going well enough.
"Obviously, the league was pretty disappointing the way it finished off (Cavan finished bottom of Division Two with a solitary win). We'd been in amongst teams that had played in All-Ireland finals and semi-finals so it was good experience for boys and we got that elusive win against Cork, a team that were in the All-Ireland final just last year so it probably showed to the younger boys they can compete if they play to their best."
Johnston shifted matters
away from the controversy so impressively that there was no need to seek further explanation on the topic. He comes into contact with Armagh defenders next. Thick-skinned men like Francie Bellew will be on his back. Men who take no prisoners on the Ulster championship battlefield.
"With the way Armagh defend, it's not just one or two men, they can have 10 or 12 back there at times so it can be difficult. That's the way they play. It's just up to us to counteract it with some form of forward system."
This overtly defensive approach has become the blueprint for success. Even Kerry turned winning ugly into an art form - albeit sprinkled with some green and gold magic-dust - while teams like Laois and Mayo play beautiful football to little gain.
"Westmeath have started it and they've been successful in the league and the first few games. I think most teams are doing it, to try to get men behind the ball and to make it as difficult as possible for opposition to get scores against them. It probably started with Ulster teams. Armagh and Tyrone are the best at it."
Cavan, much like Westmeath, have adopted this formula with former Armagh lieutenant Paul Grimley laying the foundations before heading south to assist Kieran McGeeney at Kildare. They will play it tight, crowd the space that Ronan Clarke and Steven McDonnell thrive upon.
"That's the way they play. They try to leave a lot of room up front for their two boys. Most teams are playing that way these days and they're lucky enough to have two excellent forwards up there, well, five or six excellent forwards. It's just the two boys seem to get most of the scores for them and most of the limelight and they're excellent players. So it's going to be up to us to get men back to crowd them out. They're going to be very hard marked but that's how things are going to work out."
You wonder is there any hope. Johnston puts forward his case by adding: "Most of the people outside of Cavan don't really know them that well but there's a lot of faith in the new boys inside of Cavan about how good they can be."
