When Terry Hyland drove from work to training on Wednesday evening, the conditions couldn't have been worse. It had rained steadily across mid-Ulster all day and Cavan were due to assemble for an outdoor session in Breffni Park.
Hyland’s team had opened their season with an encouraging 2-11 to 1-09 win against Down. Momentum is so erratic in Ulster that it is easy to forget Cavan were All-Ireland quarter-finalists two seasons ago.
That summer was the first senior manifestation of the revolutionary under-21 period which has yielded the last three Ulster titles at that grade. The present generation have been singled out as an emerging force in football but Hyland agrees that they have reached the stage where promise and potential needs to translate into a challenge for the county’s first Ulster senior title since 1997.
Coming years
“We hope that what we have done over the last three years that we can compete for Ulster finals in the coming years. And I don’t mean just for one year.”
For Hyland, the season starts at 100 miles an hour. They face Ulster University in the McKenna Cup this evening but already, the 2015 league is acquiring a sharp focus.
As new boys in Division Two, Cavan travel to Kiltoom to play Roscommon in their opening game. It is not a place where visitors tend to flourish. Roscommon have, coincidentally, become an accurate measure for Cavan of where they are at.
Both teams contested a riveting Division Three final which Cavan lost by 1-17 to 0-18. The match was hugely beneficial: both teams played with the liberation of the newly promoted and the final was a bonus: a chance to appear in Croke Park and play for silverware.
But the prolonged league brought Cavan straight into their Ulster championship preparation against Armagh, who beat them 1-12 to 0-9. When they reached the second round of the qualifiers, Roscommon were waiting again and their strong second half ended Cavan’s summer on a 0-16 to 0-5 scoreline. The pattern of the season reflected an annual dilemma for Hyland.
Nobody could argue that getting promoted to Division Two was anything but a positive step. Yet it meant that Cavan had to switch from a league mentality to the demands of Ulster with very little breathing space. The same is true this year, when Cavan are scheduled to face Monaghan, the 2013 Ulster champions, in what is laughably labelled as the easier side of the draw. Hyland has brought in Mayo’s Liam McHale, one of the most innovative skills coaches in the game, and early sessions have emphasised ball work.
Scrapping bitterly
If any pattern has emerged in recent league seasons, it is the intense competitiveness of Division Two, with evenly matched teams scrapping bitterly to go up, not down.
For Hyland, the task this year remains a delicate balancing act: winning sufficient league games and building towards the championship, while protecting a young squad from escalating demands.
“That’s it: we got promoted and the main thing we want to do is stay up. We want these guys playing at a higher level consistently and so we really can’t approach it any differently than that.
“The bigger counties have that bigger base of players sometimes, which makes it easier for them and that is something we have been trying to form here. Of our panel of 35 players, they are nearly all third level. So the big gamble in this is holding all to them after third level, when they might want to go abroad or start employment.
“The demands are immediate. We have Laois in the league after we play Roscommon and in the middle of that we have six guys tied up in a Sigerson playoff. So therefore, we have six players who will play three top-end matches in seven days, which goes back to what we were just talking about. And therein lies the problem, with competitions interlinking and that kind of stuff.”
For any county with ambitions, Cavan make a perfect case study in that they have done everything right. They have worked extensively at under age, yielding the three Ulster under-21 successes which Hyland managed. They have climbed through the league.
Extreme edge
They made the last eight of the All-Ireland in 2013. For Hyland, the challenges are enjoyable even if, like all managers, he feels as if all elite teams are operating on the extreme edge of amateurism. Given the time and energy that inter-county football sucks up, results have become imperative.
After their recent McKenna Cup match, Down’s Jim McCorry articulated his dismay at the defensive strategy adopted by Cavan. Hyland believes the new emphasis on defence is going to feature strongly in league and championship this year and is nonplussed about criticisms of it.
“I feel that traditional football as people would perceive it has changed and systems have changed. Okay, you do what to entertain when possible but which is better: to be a very entertaining team and lose or to win . . . followers do want to see their team winning. And I feel that it is a natural progression. It is nothing new.
“The game evolves and coaching adapts to that. There is so much time and effort that goes into it and you only have the result at the end of it to show for the hard work that you do. So no question, teams do set out their stall to get results. But there was one point last Sunday when we were nine points ahead. So if that is being defensive, I will live with it any day.”
