Tactical mistakes prove costly for Cavan in final flop

Opinion: Tactics board

Mark McGowan

Bitter disappointment will be the prevailing emotion as Cavan’s footballers’ season ended with defeat to Westmeath in Croke Park. Despite taking an early lead and holding a two-point advantage with 12 minutes of normal time remaining, few Cavan fans could argue that Westmeath weren’t the better side on the day and deserved inaugural Tailteann Cup champions.

As stated in last week’s tactical preview, 12 of Cavan’s 15 starting players were certain to start, with the strong expectation that Conor Moynagh would replace Ciaran Brady as well. That left two places up for grabs and though I felt that Cian Madden and Luke Fortune would get the nods, they went to Madden and Niall Carolan instead.

Westmeath named an unchanged line-up from the side that comfortably defeated Offaly in the semi-final three weeks previous, where the Faithful county were no match for their neighbours’ pacey and powerful running game.

As expected, Killian Brady took up marking duties on John Heslin, Padraig Faulkner picked up Luke Loughlin and Carolan completed the last line of defence by taking up station on Lorcan Dolan. Since Westmeath typically leave three attacking players high up the field, it was hard to argue with these defensive match-ups for Cavan with Carolan on the quickest, Brady on the classiest, and Faulkner on the biggest threat aerially, and though each of Cavan’s full-back line made glaring errors at various stages, each of them will fell that they had their opponent in their pocket for long sections of the game.

The thing about defending though, is that any lapse in concentration can be fatal and so it proved as both Faulkner and Carolan were caught ball-watching for the opening goal. The Kingscourt man allowed Loughlin to peel off him in the square where he was found by Ronan O’Toole’s delightful cross-field pass, while the Cúchulainns youngster was caught napping as Dolan raced by him to finish after Loughlin had teed him up.

In last week’s preview, I highlighted centre-forward O’Toole as the main attacking threat and the man to watch, expecting Jason McLoughlin to be given a man-marking job on the elusive St. Loman’s man. However, Cavan management instead opted to assign this task to Conor Brady.

Brady has had a superb year in Cavan blue and nothing can take that away, but tackling large opponents has been his bread and butter and the diminutive O’Toole was far too clever and elusive for the powerful Gowna man. By the time McLoughlin was switched onto O’Toole just after the 20-minute mark with Brady now watching Sam McCartan, O’Toole had four points from play to his name and had almost single-handedly kept Westmeath in touch.

At the other end of the field, Westmeath manager Jack Cooney identified James Smith as Cavan’s most dangerous weapon and placed his trust in captain Kevin Maguire to man-mark him. I’d expected Maguire to get to grips with Paddy Lynch and Smith to emerge as the ace in the pack, but this was an inspired move by Cooney as Smith’s physical presence was conspicuous by its absence in any meaningful way close to goal.

With Maguire on Smith, Lynch was picked up by Jack Smith in what ought to have been a mismatch height-wise, had aerial deliveries been forthcoming. They weren’t, and this was surprising given Cavan’s success with early, direct ball in the earlier stages of the championship and the frequency with which the kick-pass option was selected in the ensuing encounters.

On the 40, Gearoid McKiernan found himself being marked by David Lynch which gave Ronan Wallace more freedom to do what he does best – make repetitive driving runs right through the heart of Cavan’s defence. Quite who (if anybody) was supposed to be tracking Wallace when Westmeath were in possession wasn’t clear, but if that was the case then it was a terrible oversight given Wallace’s threat for goals as he bombs forward.

Of course, tactics are never a one-way street and there are counters to every measure, but in more ways than one, this was an extremely tame performance by the Breffni men. To think of Thomas Galligan’s direct running against Donegal – prompting some members of the crowd to release their inner “Hulk” in tribute – or the incisive and unstoppable run from the throw-in against Fermanagh, and it’s difficult to fathom how unadventurous 2020’s Ulster Player of the Year was in possession and how unwilling he seemed to take the ball into contact.

In fact, the same can be said of most of the Cavan team, but you’d expect Galligan to be the most prominent given how difficult he is to stop. There was an element of risk-averse football about Cavan’s play and you’d have to suspect that their openness at the back against Sligo played its part in no small measure.

Bringing Conor Moynagh back into the team was no doubt designed to make Cavan more structurally sound at the back – something I’d personally advocated for – but it ultimately failed to have the desired impact as Westmeath still found too many holes in the Cavan defence and rendered Graham’s men rather listless as they brought the ball out of defence, often barely above walking pace.

This was not a game where kick-out strategies had a major bearing, and for that I’d tend to be a little critical of Cavan. Raymond Galligan’s first kicking option all year has been to go long, to find a man in space between 45 and 65, or to kick long to a contest in which invariably the odds are in Breffni’s favour. This has given Cavan a great platform from which to launch swift attacks, but at the weekend Galligan opted to go short on most occasions and Westmeath were able to comfortably hoover up most of the breaking balls whenever the Lacken shot-stopper kicked to a contest.

His opposite number Jason Daly must’ve expected to be faced with an aggressive press given the size of his blue-shirted opponents, so will have been very happy to realise that the short option was available more often than not. Again, the risk of being caught on a quick counter no doubt influenced Cavan’s tactics, but this was uncharacteristically negative from a side that have played on the front foot all season.

The impact from the bench was one of the defining characteristics of Cavan’s Ulster Championship triumph in 2020, with Thomas Galligan’s introduction turning the game on its head against Monaghan – and to a lesser extent, against Antrim – and Conor Madden doing the same against Down, but there has been very little to write home about from the substitutes this year. Stephen Smith came in for Cian Madden at half-time, and though Smith did reasonably well, it was a like-for-like replacement.

Though Conor Brady had struggled to deal with Ronan O’Toole in the early stages, he was one of the better players after swapping with McLoughlin, and one of the few in a blue shirt who drove forward with intent, so I was a little surprised to see him replaced by Martin Reilly after 50 minutes. The Killygarry veteran may well have played his last game in a Cavan shirt and it will be one to forget having given away possession in the lead-up to Westmeath’s second goal, though there are roughly a half-dozen Breffni men who ought to have done much better as Kieran Martin careened through the defence like a velvet-quilted sledgehammer.

It is much too simplistic to say that Thomas Galligan’s red card – which he can have few complaints over – was the turning point – even if Westmeath went on to outscore Cavan by 1-04 to no score – because the Lake County men looked much the fresher side, but I guess we’ll never know for sure.

Is this the end of the road for Mickey Graham? I suspect the people of Cavan would love to see him stay but that is a decision that he’ll ultimately make himself. Tactical reviews always have the benefit of hindsight, and on occasion, even the best laid tactical plans come a cropper due to unforeseen circumstances, human error, or just plain old bad luck.

Graham has gotten much more right than he’s gotten wrong, and in a game of such fine margins, you can’t ask for much more than that.