Sunday May 29

Ulster Senior Football Championship Quarter-Final

Cavan v Armagh, Kingspan Breffni Park, 3.30pm (RTE)

Motivation should be easy to source for the Armagh footballers ahead of Sunday’s Ulster SFC clash with Cavan at Breffni Park. After all, they’re surely still stinging from the 3-18 to 0-10 trouncing they suffered against the same opposition in March.

That day they couldn’t cope with the sheer intensity of Cavan’s tackling, as time and again an Armagh ball-carrier was turned over. And when Cavan turned over the ball, they counter-attacked with lighting speed.

The Armagh defence simply couldn’t cope with the power of Cavan forwards like David Givney, Gearoid McKiernan, and Michael Argue, and the elusive sniping of Sean Johnston caused them endless headaches too.

“We sort of fell apart after the first eight minutes,” admitted Armagh manger Kieran McGeeney. “We went three up and we just gave away a sloppy goal and it went from bad to worse. As I said at the time, it was more to do with me than the players. I picked the team, and we failed miserably in a couple of areas. But it helped us to look at ourselves.”

Armagh did improve after that chastening experience. They drew with both Galway and Tyrone, and then enjoyed a six-point win over Derry in their last match of the League campaign. That wasn’t  enough to prevent relegation to Division Three though, whereas Cavan gained promotion to Division One. 

They were subsequently beaten in the Division Two Final by Tyrone, but they gained a measure of honour in defeat because they pushed Mickey Harte’s team all the way. That achievement is looking all the more laudable now in light of Tyrone’s very impressive destruction of Derry in the Ulster Quarter-Final.

“Yeah, we have a tough job against Cavan,” admitted McGeeney. “They have started to get their balance right in terms of attacking and defending. They have McKiernan and Johnston. You have McVeety and Reilly on the wings and their work ethic is incredible, they must be two of the hardest-working players in the country I would say. They would be up there with Flynn and Connolly.

“Those two boys are unreal in terms of how they work. They have a good system in place, very strong up the middle. We have our work cut out, but it will be interesting to see how far we have come, how far they have come. Watching them against Tyrone, although people would say that Tyrone held them comfortably, I would have looked at it differently. If Givney's shot had have been an inch lower, at that particular moment in the game, it could have been a different game.”

There’s a nice settled look to this Cavan team whereas Armagh have been forced to patch up the team quite a bit this year because of a rash of injuries as well as the unavailability of players like Jamie Clarke and Caolan Rafferty. They’ll be fired up for this match though, and anything other than a tight and ferociously fougth contest would be a surprise.

“It could give us a good indication of where we are,” said McGeeney. “That's the biggest thing. And for the boys they have to look at it that sort of way. It's not that we are going out thinking about revenge. You tend to lose perspective in what you are trying to achieve. We have to go out and better our chances, our opportunities. Our tracking back, making sure we are in the right positions, the right tackles, turnovers against Cavan that day was just shocking, under no pressure. There is a lot of stuff for us to look at.”

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