Ciarán Murphy: Cavan can set the tone for the Tailteann Cup

Sometimes the communal jibber-jabber of the Gael on a Sunday afternoon is a discordant mess, flying off in a dozen different directions, but to those of us finely attuned to the noise one question could be heard distinctly rising above the clamour as the dinner plates were put away last weekend – just how the hell did this Cavan team end up in Division 4?

The answer, without being facetious, is that they lost enough games in Division 2, and Division 3, to get relegated. There are some mitigations attached – they went down from Division 2 on the head-to-head rule in the Covid-interrupted league of 2020 having got six points, only one point less than the team that finished fourth, and then their second relegation was from a truncated four-team Division 3 North last year.

Then again, they can argue all they like about that format, but they were given a chance to stay in Division 3 by beating Wicklow in a neutral venue in a relegation playoff last year, and they couldn’t do it, so they started 2022 where their results dictated.

If they go and win the Tailteann Cup this year, then their performance in the perennial mud-wrestle that is Division 3 next year won't matter

They might feel like they’ve been shunted off the main stage, but all eyes should still be on them in the coming weeks because in many ways they can set the tone for an entire competition.

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They should push on and win the Tailteann Cup, and it’s important to the entire competition’s integrity that they do just that. If the Tailteann Cup is to mean anything, it should mean most to the teams capable of using it as a stepping stone.

Cavan might pride themselves on being a championship team, but if they can only raise themselves for the Ulster championship, it leaves them staring down the barrel of multiple years in a similar situation.

If they go and win the Tailteann Cup this year, then their performance in the perennial mud-wrestle that is Division 3 next year won’t matter – they will have qualified for next year’s revised Sam Maguire competition.

Cavan manager Mickey Graham was asked about bouncing back and attacking the Tailteann Cup on the BBC television coverage a couple of minutes after the final whistle and he seemed less than enthused.

From his point of view it may have struck him as being overly defeatist to immediately start talking up the positives of playing in the Tailteann Cup when he was two poxy goals away from an Ulster final.

Down co-captain Barry O’Hagan was even more blunt after their loss to Monaghan the weekend before – “it’s pointless. You’d rather be going into the back door situation. For me personally, I don’t know about the group, I have very little interest in it, to be honest.”

On the same evening O’Hagan was making those comments, Tony McEntee spoke openly and positively on The Sunday Game about what an opportunity the new competition is for his Sligo team after their expected loss to Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final.

Maybe we should just leave aside comments about this new competition from players and managers in the emotional immediate aftermath of defeats. However, those three reactions do tell us a little about the challenges of a competition where you don’t start the year knowing for sure that you’ll be playing in it.

If you’re an intermediate club team, you might be annoyed at your diminished status, but you plan your entire year around getting out of that grade. Mickey Graham was presented with this booby prize last Sunday, and was effectively asked to talk up their presence in it three minutes after it was confirmed. That is difficult, no doubt.

The difference between McEntee and O’Hagan’s immediate post-match reactions is perhaps indicative of the difference between counties who are realistic about their status in the game and see the Tailteann Cup as a way to make gradual, incremental improvement, and those teams who see it as a demotion, as something beneath them.

Leitrim copped a heavy beating last week, but have a very positive league campaign to fall back on

Maybe it’s uncharitable, but it suggests to me the difference between someone being bracingly realistic about their financial status and planning accordingly, and someone thinking they’re just a temporarily-embarrassed millionaire, to borrow John Steinbeck’s phrase.

The Tailteann Cup line-up will be sorted this weekend, and maybe then, when we’re down to 16 teams in the Sam Maguire, and 17 in the Tailteann Cup, it’ll feel like the shadow-boxing will be over.

We have championship football in May, June and July, with fewer mismatches, and winnable games for every team left in both competitions.

Leitrim copped a heavy beating last week, but have a very positive league campaign to fall back on. Wexford beat a team that started the year in Division 2 in the Leinster championship. Waterford and Carlow have had wretched years but they all have something legitimate to play for.

Every iteration of this competition will have a few teams who’ll think they’re too good for it, but Cavan have a chance to show everyone that the best way to prove you don’t belong in the Tailteann Cup is to go and win it.