PREVIEW – Cavan v Dublin – Slight hope for Breffni

WE all know that Dublin are so far ahead of the chasing pack in Leinster it’s not even funny, but does a similar gulf exist once they’ve sleepwalked into the All-Ireland stages?

The ‘Super Eights’ of the last two years seem like as good a place as any to answer that question: in 2018 they won all three of their group stage clashes by an average of seven-and-a-bit points, while last year they were their scarily dominant selves, winning their three matches by an average of a dozen points.

What differentiates this Dublin team from the great Tyrone and Kerry teams of the noughties, is that they never even come close to getting ambushed by lesser opponents, which isn’t much fun for the rest of us.

Mickey Graham seems to have perfected the art of engineering great upsets, but this particular challenge is akin to a decent tennis player taking on the might of Rafa Nadal at Roland Garros. But by all accounts the Cavan players have kept their feet on the ground after their remarkable Ulster Championship campaign.

They got back to training a few days after they left Donegal questioning everything they thought they knew about themselves, and a two-week break may or may not have done them the world of good after they were out for six weeks on the trot.

While no-one disputes that Cavan were deserved Ulster champions, and that they’ve made massive strides under Mickey Graham, Saturday’s game will reveal just how close they are to breaking into the top tier on a more permanent basis (allowing for the fact they were relegated into Division Three).

In last week’s Gaelic Life, former boss Terry Hyland attributed much of their current success to their advancements at underage level in the last 15 years, and they actually lost an All-Ireland U-21 semi-final to Dublin by a point back in 2014.

For what it’s worth, many of the players from both teams are now involved at senior level (Brian Fenton, Davy Byrne, Niall Scully to name but a few for Dublin, and a batch of Cavan stalwarts like Padraig Faulkner, Conor Brady and Killian Clarke).

In reality, whatever happens on Saturday, it’ll have been a historic year for the county. They’ve just won the Ulster title for only the second time in 50 years, and they’ll probably get over it soon enough if they’re beaten out the gate by the Dubs.

While there has been so much good about Cavan’s play, they still haven’t really found a settled inside forward line.

Conor Madden is only back from injury and has been deployed purely as a sub, though that may chang this weekend, while Conor Smith and James Smith are still finding their feet at this level even though they were handed starting berths against Donegal (BBC Pundit Martin Clarke theorised that the late inclusion of James Smith took Donegal by surprise and he did hit two good points).

That’s without mentioning Cavan’s man of the moment, Thomas Galligan. It’s hard to believe he too was a substitute for their opening championship matches against Monaghan and Antrim, and it’s hard not to avoid the conclusion Graham is still figuring things out on the hop, through no fault of his own really.

The rest of the team is flying though. Jason McLoughlin and Padraig Faulkner have been rock solid, Killian Brady and Killian Clarke look like men reborn, and Gearoid McKiernan and Martin Reilly continue to make massive contributions to the cause. Their discipline was excellent against Donegal, which surely must’ve delighted their manager after some of the mishaps in earlier rounds, and they played like men on a mission from start-to-finish, another change from previous matches.

Dublin’s standards haven’t slipped in the first year of the post-Jim Gavin era, and they basically trampled all over Meath in the Leinster final. They hunted their opponents in packs so hunger obviously isn’t an issue, and some of the subtle changes imposed by new manager Dessie Farrell seem to be working well.

Taking Con O’Callaghan further out the pitch seemed a strange move at first, but he’s proved a great outlet for Stephen Cluxton, while Paddy Small and Sean Bugler have moved their way up the ranks and are playing great stuff in attack.

They could afford to bring on Brian Howard and Paul Mannion at half-time against Meath, and while they claimed their tenth Leinster final in-a-row on a scoreline of 3-21 to 0-9, they probably could’ve won by even more, such was the gulf in class.

That said, Meath didn’t turn up, so neutrals and Cavan fans alike will be hoping that we’ll have a watchable game of football on Saturday evening. It seems trite to even predict a Dublin victory at this stage, but please God Cavan make a game of it – and if they don’t, it won’t be the end of the world after their heroics in Ulster.

All-Ireland Senior Football

Championship semi-final

Cavan v Dublin

Saturday, Croke Park, 5.30pm