IT’S UNSURPRISING THAT Cavan are warm favourites to be the inaugural winners of the Tailteann Cup. 

The 2020 Ulster champions have sounded the right notes as they prepare for the second tier competition, with Raymond Galligan and Mickey Graham indicating their keenness to attack it. 

Cavan have already sealed promotion from Division 4, beating Tipperary in the final at Croke Park.

They ran Donegal close in the Ulster SFC semi-final until two late goals dashed their hopes. That spirited performance against Donegal plus their recent provincial success, earmarks Graham’s team as the ones to beat over the coming weeks. 

The Breffni men may feel miffed at their inclusion in the Tailteann Cup. Then again, the league table rarely lies. 

“We’re probably here on merit, as in we had two bad years in the league,” says experienced defender Killian Clarke. “We found ourselves in Division 4 then. We won it this year to hopefully make our way back up the leagues.

“I think we need to have that mindset going into it that it’s an opportunity. We’re here because we’ve performed poorly over the last number of years and we need to see it as an opportunity to develop as players and to develop on the big stage.

“Where it ranks in comparison to an Ulster championship, I don’t know, if you asked me would I rather win an Ulster championship or win a Tailteann Cup, it’s a fairly straight answer for me all the same. But it’s definitely something we’d be targeting and looking to go after.

“I think it’ll be a good competition,” he continues. “We’re always looking to improve as a panel.

“Hopefully we’ll use it as a bit of a stepping stone for next year, get a few more minutes under younger lads as well.

“Hopefully if you make it to the latter stages we’ll be on the main stage here in HQ, and get a few more minutes on the Croke Park turf wouldn’t do anyone any harm.”

Having worn the favourites tag for every league game this year, Clarke doesn’t believe it will affect them as they face Down in the opening round today. 

“It’s a continuous battle that we’ve had all year – our targets, our goals, are against ourselves. We are our main competitors.

“We’ve our own targets that we’ve set out for each individual game, regardless of who we’re playing, we’re looking to achieve those. So it doesn’t make a lot of difference to us.”

Over a decade into his senior inter-county career with Cavan, Clarke has seen it all.

Inconsistency has haunted them at times, primarily in the spring. They’ve suffered three league relegations in the past four seasons. 

Cavan manager Mickey Graham dejected after their loss to Donegal. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

There was a touch of misfortune to their successive relegations in Division 2 and 3. They went down from the second tier on the head-to-head rule despite finishing on six points.

In the truncated 2021 league, they paid a heavy price for a dismal start to the campaign and lost to Wicklow by 3-11 to 0-18 in the relegation play-off.

“Since I’ve been involved with them, this last 10 years, a lot of our stats show that we do a lot of things very well and probably the scoring side of things lets us down a lot of the time and shooting accuracy.

“That day was very poor against Wicklow, they had three goals in that game. It’s something you wouldn’t have associated with Cavan throughout the years, of conceding goals. So yeah, we were definitely caught on the hop that day and we needed to learn and to move on.”

The pull of representing Cavan remains strong for the 28-year-old. 

“I think obviously everyone wants to win silverware. But I think if you take a step back and if you’re not lucky enough to find yourself in that (silverware) bracket at that given time, sometime we always say is just leaving the jersey in a better place than when you find it.

“I think the standards in Cavan have risen over the last 10 years even. Even more so in the last couple of years. Mickey brought that professional attitude and helped us to drive our standards and to push on as a team.”

Their opponents Down have endured a far more difficult run of things, but Clarke says they won’t be “taking them for granted”.

“If you were taking Down in the quarter-final of the Ulster championship you definitely wouldn’t be pulling any punches with them. It’ll be an interesting one. Obviously there were a few departures with Down in recent weeks so you’re probably getting a mixed bag, there’s probably a few of the U20s drafted in.

“You could be dealing with a completely different animal to what you seen throughout the year. It could probably go one or two ways, it could galvanise them or they could down tools.

“We’ll have a review of them and see what way they’re setting up and hopefully we can come out on the right side of that game.”

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