CAVAN star Killian Clarke expects Kieran McGeeney to have his “game face” on when the counties meet in the Ulster Championship – as the Orchard boss plots revenge for Armagh’s mauling at the hands of the Breffnimen during the League.
On a harrowing night at the start of March, they left Kingspan Breffni Park with their tails between their legs after a 17-point humbling. It was a defeat that played a huge part in sending Armagh down to Division Three as they were eventually relegated on score difference on the last day of their ill-fated League campaign.
The likes of captain Ciaran McKeever and Tony Kernan have recently spoken about the collective soul-searching that took place on a long journey home, and they won’t have forgotten the pain of that defeat when they run out on May 29.
For Clarke and Cavan though, it has been about making progress. Beating Armagh helped propel them into Division One but, for the Shercock man, that’s where the story begins and ends.
He said: “Whatever happened in the League is done and dusted. Armagh is a whole new test.
“We beat them by a big score during the League but they’re going to be a whole new animal - you know McGeeney’s going to have his game face on for that day.
“We probably got the rub of the green that day. Other days those points don’t go over – there were shots from the sidelines, goals going in left, right and centre. We broke the back of them that day and you know, I’m not saying they gave up, but we walked through them in the last 10 or 15 minutes and made it look worse than it actually was.”
In the aftermath of Sunday’s Division Two final defeat to Tyrone, Cavan boss Terry Hyland was quick to dismiss the notion that he had deliberately opted against showing his full hand to McGeeney prior to the Championship clash.
“Ah, I don’t think so,” said the Lacken man.
“It’s very hard to go out and do that in a game – people would’ve said the night they played us in the League that they held back because of playing in the Championship, but ultimately it probably got them relegated so if you hold back in these games you get beaten and nobody wants to get beaten.”
Losing to the Red Hands at Croke Park on Sunday was something of a come down from the high of sealing promotion against Galway three weeks previous, and gave the Breffnimen an example of the kind of standards they must aim for heading into the Championship.
Clarke admitted Cavan had struggled to get to grips with Tyrone’s fluid counter-attacking system as the game went away from them in the second half.
“It’s a good gauge of where we’re at at the minute,” he said.
“We made mistakes. Tyrone have a good system set up with the two sweepers and everyone just floods back.
“We struggled to break it down and when we did break them down they got the turnovers and they had the fresh legs coming on in that half-forward line, the likes of Richie Donnelly and [Conor] Meyler, and they got forward with pace and punished us.
“We play a similar system to Tyrone but they’re probably just a year or two further on in that stage, they’re probably used to it as well. We’re not as clinical up front and we’re not as quick at the transition from the half-back line into the full-forward line.
“Hopefully we can get that working a bit more naturally for us.”
