Ulster Senior Football Championship semi-final

Cavan v Antrim

Saturday, Kingspan Breffni Park, 1.15pm

Cavan earned a dramatic victory over Monaghan last weekend and should now feel they are capable of returning to the Ulster Championship semi-finals for the second year in a row.

Last season, Mickey Graham led his county to the decider during his first season in charge. They were beaten by Donegal of course, but last weekend’s win goes some way to suggest that Graham has instilled some sort of steel into his team.

Cavan were not expected to beat Monaghan last weekend based on their recent relegation from Division two to division three.

Cavan lost their final two games of the league, to Kildare and Roscommon, and that meant they were relegated on head to head result with Clare who had finished on the same points as Cavan.

So with those results in the background, the expectation was that Monaghan – who had retained their place in division one – would win outright. And they probably should have. They led by six points in the final ten minutes of normal time, but scores from Gearoid McKiernan, Martin Reilly, Niall Murray and a superb point from Gerard Smith forced the game to extra time.

Momentum, as players and managers often tell us, is so crucially important in these games but in the early stages both teams played like they were shell shocked and neither could score. Christopher McGuinness’s sending off didn’t help Monaghan’s cause. Martin Reilly’s goal swung the game in Cavan’s favour but back came Monaghan. Shane Carey equalisd, Chris Conroy put Cavan in front, then Rory Beggan squared the game. But the final moments saw Raymond Galligan kick that dramatic winner.

What Ulster fans should take away from this is that the Monaghan Cavan rivalry is as strong as it ever has been. For the second year in a row, Cavan knocked Monaghan out of the Ulster Championship despite the fact that they play in the lower league to the Farney men.

And we can also assume that Cavan could easily go on and reach the semi-final stages again just as they did last year, and perhaps go even further based on the belief that the players have in their own abilities.

Antrim fans might be hoping that their team can do what Cavan did last weekend and upset the odds. They had a disappointing league campaign and yet again missed out on promotion to division three, something which they had been so desperate to achieve for many years.

Yet the reality of them getting a win this weekend feels like a distant hope. Unlike Cavan, who were in the Ulster final last year, Anrim haven’t won an Ulster Championship match since 2014, when they beat Fermanagh in the first round.

Saffrons fans might point to their performance in last year’s qualifiers, when they beat Louth in Drogheda by 2-16 to 1-11. There was a good deal of feel good factor earned after that win, and the knock on effect was a great turn out at Corrigan Park when Kildare came to visit. Antrim lost that game, but the two performances suggested that Lenny Harbinson’s Saffrons possessed some fight.

But taking the line that Antrim’s fight shown in last year’s Ulster Championship ignores the disappointing result in this year’s league. After they returned to action following the long break enforced stoppage to football because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Antrim lost to Wicklow by 7-11 to 0-7. Such a dramatic defeat, was not only disastrous for Antrim’s hopes for promotion, but it was also a hammer blow to the confidence of a team who had been in the running for promotion.

Cavan haven’t played Antrim in the Ulster Championship in over a decade. The memory is a fond one for the Saffrons as the meeting came in 2009, when Antrim beat the Breffni by 0-13 to 1-7 to earn their place in the Ulster final.

That was a historic and frenetic season for the Saffrons, one of fond memories. Antrim had gained promotion to division three that year, while Cavan won three games and finished mid table in division three.

While the optimistic in Antrim might try to invoke the spirit of 2009, it seems like too much of a stretch to expect Antrim to win this weekend.

Cavan showed real steel to beat Monaghan.

If there is a chink of doubt it might be that they won’t be familiar with how Antrim set up. They could also take Lenny Harbinson’s team for granted. But that’s unlikely.