By Niall Gartland
CAVAN legend Stephen King expects their good form to continue when they face Fermanagh in Sunday’s Tailteann Cup quarter-final clash at Brewster Park.
Despite fielding a strong team, the Breffni County slipped to a 0-15 to 0-14 defeat when they met Fermanagh in an ill-fated league campaign last year, but they’re much-improved this season and are favourites to win the inaugural Tailteann Cup.
They claimed a routine victory over Down in their opening round clash at the weekend, so they seem to be treating the competition with seriousness, but there’s no room for error when they take on Fermanagh. Still, King expects them to march on to a semi-final date, and he’s also relieved they seem to have arrested their slide in fortunes after achieving promotion from Division Four back in the spring.
“Well they’re favourites to win the Tailteann Cup and that’s justified going on their performances to date. It’s just the ability to carry that tag.
“They’ve a difficult enough draw, Fermanagh at home is never an easy proposition, but I feel Cavan have come on in leaps and bounds this season.
“Division Four was a terrible place to be, but there’s no point dwelling on it anymore, that’s where they found themselves and it’s good they found their way out of it.”
While there’s considerable scepticism about the Tailteann Cup, effectively an All-Ireland ‘B’ competition, King says it deserves a chance.
“The Tailteann Cup is a good competition and all it needs is a bit of tweaking. I think the teams are in it to win it, for want of a better phrase. Cavan are going in the right direction anyway, they played extremely well in Ulster against Donegal, and very well against Down on Saturday. Down are weakened at the moment but you can only play what’s in front of me and I think Cavan look impressive.”
The Cavan team that won the Ulster Championship in 1997 was honoured at half-time of the Derry-Donegal final at Clones on Sunday. King was captain of that time and enjoyed his day out on Sunday.
“The whole day was super from start to finish. We met early for mass and had breakfast and then we were bussed to Clones and introduced to the crowd.
“We went back to Hotel Kilmore for a meal and some beverages and it was an absolutely fabulous day. I’d bump into a few of the fellas at matches but there were five or six people I wouldn’t have seen in the 25 years, like the physio and masseuse, so it was great to meet those fellas. It was good to have a sit and a chat and I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was fantastic.”
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