Ulster SFC preliminary round: Monaghan v Cavan (Sunday, 4pm, Clones, live on RTÉ2 and BBC2 NI)
GAELIC football and the Ulster Championship poke at Rory Beggan gently, trying to get him to turn over and stop sleep-talking without being so blunt as to waken him from this dream.
He’s watched Charlie Smyth sign a contract, seen Louis Rees-Zammit on a different trajectory to the SuperBowl champions.
The call has not yet come, but that’s not to say it won’t.
For now, though, he’ll be the focus of everyone’s attention as the provincial preliminary round gets a live TV Sunday afternoon practically to itself.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that an impending return to the team – which is widely expected – is the height of this game against Cavan.
It is not.
So much of it is in the height of others.
When Monaghan went to Celtic Park last year, his midfield was Karl Gallagher and Killian Lavelle. Gary Mohan was at full-forward, Dessie Ward on the wing, Conor Boyle at centre-back, Darren and Kieran Hughes both late substitutes as they earned a draw, with Andrew Woods missing and Niall Kearns gone.
Mohan and Darren Hughes will start at midfield tomorrow. Lavelle’s role all this year has been a defensive one, albeit more in the half-back line.
But look at the physical profile of Monaghan’s half-back and half-forward lines.
Karl O’Connell, Killian Lavelle, Conor McCarthy, Ciaran McNulty, Michael Hamill and Jason Irwin is what they’ve named to start.
In terms of ball-winning prowess, that will not strike fear into Cavan hearts.
Raymond Galligan’s side have allowed that fear to consume them on occasion over the last eighteen months but the origins of that are very similar.
When he was in goals under Mickey Graham and they were winning Ulster titles, they were at their best when they had nothing to lose.
Go back to the 2020 preliminary round tie between these two in an empty St Tiernach’s Park. Monaghan were seven up at half-time and still six ahead with an hour gone.
Nothing else for it, Cavan played the final 14 minutes with complete abandon.
They rescued extra-time and from there, they won, with their now-manager kicking the dramatic winner at the death.
At half-time in the semi-final, they trailed Down by 1-9 to 0-4. They threw the shackles off, started to run hard at Down, and won by 1-14 to 1-13.
Thomas Galligan ended the year as an Allstar at midfield and Gearoid McKiernan was nominated for one.
At that time, Donegal were the province’s pre-eminent force. They would suffocate teams through their sheer physical size at midfield. But Cavan never feared that because they had those two, Killian Clarke, James Smith, Conor Brady – plenty of ways out.
When they met Donegal in 2022, Declan Bonner’s side forced them long 11 times in the first half. Cavan won five of those. Very few teams won five of those against that Donegal side.
But look now. Thomas Galligan is gone, Gearoid McKiernan is gone, Killian Clarke is a surprise absentee through injury, James Smith has been in a halfway house of rotating to full-forward for a few years. Very similar to Conn Kilpatrick’s role for Tyrone, they haven’t had a proper return on the investment.
Their half-back and half-forwards lines have a similarly small physical profile to Monaghan’s.
That has been evident in how they’ve gone about things.
Armagh railroaded them in the Athletic Grounds a month ago, winning by 2-21 to 0-12.
In the first half Cavan got cleaned out on their own kickouts and conceded all of Armagh’s. They were trying win a big game with no possession, a bit like trying to build a house with no blocks.
They struggled to make any impact on Shaun Patton’s restarts in the narrow loss to Donegal and were so far off it against Fermanagh the last day.
But in the second half of so many games this season, Cavan got angry and stepped up. Even the Armagh game. The referee twice hopped the ball on Blaine Hughes in the second half, an indication of how different their approach was.
They’re like a side that needs to feed off an aggressive mindset.
So the opening ten minutes will be really instructive on Sunday. There’s set to be a significant wind in Clones.
Monaghan will push up on Cavan’s kickouts either way because they’ll know from Division One experience that you just can’t afford not to.
But do Cavan have the belief in themselves to do the same? To say to Rory Beggan ‘go on ahead, kick it out over the top of us but there’s nothing coming out short’. Make it a contest, feed off that.
Because anything else would feel like Cavan are just waiting to be beaten.
These are notoriously uber-tight encounters, cagey. Monaghan win that type of game this weekend because Conor McManus and Jack McCarron will do enough and they carry the greater goal threat.
Paddy Lynch is shooting the lights out. Nobody in Ireland kicked more in the league than his 1-48. His free-taking has been almost perfect.
But in the ultra-tactical world of Ulster football, watch Monaghan trying to push Cavan attacks down their left wing defensively knowing that if they concede a free, Raymond Galligan has no left-footed free-taker at his disposal.
There are serious absentees on both sides. Monaghan have been plagued by hamstring injuries all spring. There’s no Stephen O’Hanlon, Dessie Ward or Ryan McAnespie. Micheal Bannigan is on the bench, while Andrew Woods is suspended after his dismissal against Mayo.
Both Thomas McPhillips and Stephen Mooney are among their subs. McPhillips played for Monaghan U20s during the week but Mooney didn’t, perhaps indicating that he might have some significant part to play here.
Cavan have no Dara McVeety, Killian Clarke, Jason McLoughlin or Ryan O’Neill in their 26, with doubts persisting over Padraig Faulkner’s fitness.
There’s risk in opening up against Monaghan, exposing yourself to McManus and McCarron, particularly with uncertainty over the man-marking duties that will most likely fall to Killian Brady and Brian O’Connell.
But if Raymond Galligan’s side concern themselves too much with fear of what Monaghan might do, as they did against Armagh last year, then they’ll lose anyway.
For Cavan to win this, they have to throw caution to the wind.
Otherwise the height of it will be a Monaghan victory.