By Niall Gartland

RAYMOND Galligan’s Cavan are bidding to get up and running at the second time of asking when they travel to Navan to take on Meath on Sunday, but they’ll need to improve if they’re to move towards achieving promotion out of Division Two.

They lost out in a high-scoring match against Monaghan on their first day out, and while it was a competitive encounter, there were certain deficiencies in their play that need ironed out, ideally sooner rather than later.

The Breffnimen shot themselves in the foot, so to speak, with a poor conversion rate in front of goals, despite mustering 20 points (including a couple of two-pointers) across the 70-plus minutes. They took 32 shots so it was a poor enough return, but on the flipside at least they created plenty of chances.

It possibly isn’t such a surprise that they didn’t click into gear up front when you consider they aren’t playing with a full deck – Oisin Brady, who had a strong enough 2024, has dropped off the panel, as has another talented forward, Cormac O’Reilly. Attacking fulcrum Paddy Lynch is still recovering from an ACL injury, and they’re still waiting the return of a certain Gearóid McKieran, who’ll be a very real option either up front or in the middle.

And on that note, that was another worrying aspect of their play against their old rivals Monaghan – they were cleared out in the middle sector, so that’s another obvious area for improvement, while their at-times slack handpassing is something that in theory can be worked on on the training ground. It’s of crucial importance that they pick up two points against Meath or they’ll have nothing to show for their efforts heading into the third round. When they met this time last year, it ended up a fairly low-scoring draw, and it’ll likely be another close one.