EirGrid Ulster U20 Football Championship quarter-final
Cavan v Monaghan (Wednesday, Kingspan Breffni, 7.30pm)
CAVAN reached the Ulster U20 Championship final last season but lost to eventual All-Ireland champions Tyrone by the minimum of margins.
That defeat hurt and thoughts of what could have been have driven the Breffni men on through the winter, says captain Caolan McCabe.
“It hit home alright when Tyrone went on and won the All-Ireland, but this year hopefully, we can maybe push on and progress and see how we can get on.
“It definitely hurt us, seeing a team that we lost to by a point going on to win the All-Ireland, it’s going to stick with you and there’s no getting away from that. But we’ll take it into our heads, and it does help to drive boys on at training.
“I came on the last five or 10 minutes of that final and it was a great experience even getting on for those few minutes. I’d another year at U20s so just to get on and get to experience an Ulster final was great.”
The likes of Niall Carolan, Brian O’Rourke and Tiarnan Madden have graduated to Mickey Graham’s senior squad since, showing the pathway for the rest of the Cavan youngsters.
“Hopefully we can all push on and get a few more players up to that level. It drives boys on and keeps them going and helps them see where they want to get to.”
Cavan enjoyed a decent league campaign in the Philly McGuinness Cup, earning victories over Fermanagh and Leitrim following their first-round defeat to Longford. But all the attention is on the championship now and making the hard work count on the big day.
“They were good games and challenging games; it was good to try out a few different things and different players,” added McCabe.
“We worked hard in it and just came up short in the end, some games didn’t go our way, but we’re just looking forward to the championship.
“There’s always a big difference come championship because it’s only one game and you’re gone after all your hard work, whereas in league you get a couple of chances at it. But as we saw ourselves, if you don’t win all the games you can’t get through either.
“All the trainings, the hard trainings and gym sessions and everything, the work put in from all the boys and even from the management team, it all comes down to one game and it could be over like that.”
