Ulster Senior Football Championship semi-final replay: Cavan 0-23 Armagh 0-17
DARA McVeety was only three when Cavan last lifted the Anglo-Celt Cup, and just seven when Mickey Graham and his team-mates came up short against a great Tyrone team in the making.
It has been 18 long years coming, and they’re far from the finish line yet, but yesterday the master and his apprentice helped nudge the class of 2019 towards their own place in the Breffni history books.
In his first year in charge Graham, the man who helped inspire the miracle of Mullinalaghta, wants to be the man to lift the Cavan curse. Yet he will know as well as anybody the man-mountain shaped obstacle that Donegal represent on June 23
The Breffnimen led from the front yesterday, and at times looked as though they might pull out of sight altogether. But it was in those nervy second half moments when they could see Armagh creeping up on their wing mirrors, when the Orchard gander was up and Jamie Clarke had found his mojo, that Cavan showed their cool - and showed their class.
McVeety, as he had done in the drawn game seven days earlier, led the way superbly when the chips were down, displaying the same bullish determination and lust for the fight that was his manager’s hallmark.
Having trailed by seven at one stage in the first half, Kieran McGeeney’s men chipped away to close that gap as the final 10 minutes approached, and three points in the space of three minutes brought them to within a point, 0-17 to 0-16, with nine to play.
Here we go again - having gone to extra-time against Down and then Cavan the first day out, a sense of déjà vu began to fill the Clones air. Except this time, instead of being the ones pinned back, it was Armagh doing the hunting.
But Cavan, and McVeety, were having none of it. A minute later the Crosserlough dynamo won the chase with Paddy Burns, flicked the ball up into his arms and swung the ball between the posts for his second of the half.
And when Conor Moynagh, brilliant in a roving sweeper/quarterback role all day, exchanged passes with Conor Rehill before smashing between the posts, you just knew this Cavan side was made of different stuff.
He pumped his first in celebration and jumped, half the crowd leaping with him, and the Breffnimen finished off a tiring Orchard in clinical fashion, with sub Cian Mackey, McVeety, Gearoid McKiernan and Rehill rounding off an impressive afternoon’s work.
Regrets, though, Armagh will have more than a few – and in particular it is the goal chances that will haunt McGeeney.
Indeed, inside the opening four minutes they could have hit Raymond Galligan’s net twice.
Aidan Nugent was first up, cutting in from the endline, only for the Cavan goalkeeper to close the space at his near post and turn the ball wide.
A minute later a mix-up in the Breffni defence led to the ball finding Jamie Clarke on the edge of the big square with the goal at his mercy. A supreme finisher, who else would you have wanted in that position?
St Tiernach’s Park held its breath as Clarke leant back, opting for placement over power, wrapping his left boot around the ball, aiming for the bottom corner. Some thought he had found his target as cries went up behind the goal, only for his effort to drift agonisingly wide.
Mark Shields is another who is unlikely to have tuned into The Sunday Game last night after two missed goalscoring opportunities. The first came when a miscued Jarlath Og Burns shot landed in the hands of the Whitecross man, but no sooner had his gloves touched leather than Galligan was at his feet to smother.
You’d give the goalkeeper credit for that one.
But the second chance that came Shields’s way might take a while to shake from his system. Trailing by four with a minute left of regulation time, he didn’t break stride to collect a lay-off from Clarke, and as he bounded into the square only one outcome was expected.
As Shields held his head in his hands, having blazed over the bar, you knew it was over. Then, more than at any other time, Armagh really, really needed a goal, but still it didn’t come.
From that point, you could almost see the life sap from Orchard legs as Cavan feasted in the closing minutes, each score thereafter greeted with wild celebration.
This was their day; perhaps those spurned early Armagh chances should’ve told us that at the outset. In the absence of the suspended Brendan Donaghy, the Orchardmen also paid for the decision not to deploy a sweeper as blue bodies burst through wide open spaces at will in the opening half hour.
Mickey Graham’s decision to send McKiernan into full-forward for most of the day worked a treat and, after a disappointing showing the week before, he was hugely influential as Cavan moved into a 0-5 to 0-1 lead.
Brilliant blocks by Moynagh and Jason McLoughlin, on Andrew Murnin and Aidan Forker, set the tone at the other end, although McLoughlin wouldn’t enjoy as comfortable afternoon on Clarke as he enjoyed last week.
The Crossmaglen man and Stefan Campbell, when eventually brought into the action after 29 minutes, posed Armagh’s greatest attacking threat. Campbell pace and directness alone drew three frees inside seven minutes as the Orchard rallied late in the first half.
At one stage they trailed 0-9 to 0-2 courtesy of some soft defending and some equally soft calls from referee Paddy Neilan, with Niall Murray not in the mood for messing as he sent three frees between the post before the break.
The Cavan Gaels man was in slightly more charitable form during the opening minutes of the second half though as he rattled a shot off the post from six metres out after exchanging passes with McLoughlin.
By the 47th minute Armagh had closed the gap to one, with Rian O’Neill starting to come into the game, but again Cavan kept their composure and found another burst.
The introduction of the little magician Mackey from the bench lifted Cavan spirits as they turned the screw down the straight, but it was the maestro McVeety who did most damage during the final 20 minutes to leave Breffnimen everywhere dreaming of adding Ulster title number 38 to their collection.
ARMAGH midfielder Jarlath Og Burns left Clones in an ambulance after yesterday’s Ulster semi-final replay against Cavan.
The Silverbridge clubman was withdrawn from the action with one minute left to play, and felt ill in the changing rooms afterwards.
An Armagh official said it was believed Burns was suffering from dehydration.
The 21-year-old was taken to Cavan and Monaghan hospital, where his condition was last night being assessed.
In the drawn game against Cavan seven days earlier, Burns was replaced by Charlie Vernon at the start of extra-time after suffering an accidental blow to the head following a collision with one of his own players.
Initially taken off as a blood sub, he didn’t return to the action.
Armagh assistant boss Jim McCorry later said there was “no indication” Burns had suffered a concussion, and claimed the main concern of the county’s medical team surrounded an eye injury sustained in the collision.
Cavan: R Galligan (0-3, frees); J McLoughlin, P Faulkner; C Moynagh (0-2), K Clarke (0-1), C Rehill (0-1), M Reilly (0-1); C Brady, T Galligan; O Kiernan (0-1), N Murray (0-5, 0-4 frees), D McVeety (0-4); O Pierson (0-1), C Madden, G McKiernan (0-3)
Subs: C Mackey (0-1) for Madden (42), S Murray for Galligan (48), C O’Reilly for Pierson (65), J Brady for Kiernan (75)
Yellow cards: C Moynagh (43), D McVeety (45)
Armagh: B Hughes; P Burns, C Vernon; J Morgan, P Hughes, M Shields (0-1), R Kennedy, A Forker; J Og Burns, N Grimley; A Nugent, J Hall, S Campbell, R O’Neill (0-6, 0-4 frees); A Murnin, J Clarke (0-7, 0-3 frees). Subs: S Campbell (0-2) for Nugent (29), A McKay for Vernon (30), R Grugan (0-1) for Murnin (44), B Crealey for Hall (57), J McElroy for Morgan (66), E Rafferty for J Og Burns (69)
Yellow cards: C Vernon (29), J Clarke (40), P Burns (45)
Ref: P Neilan (Roscommon)
Att: 21,192
