Cavan cherish first Royal win in 50 years

AFTER an up and down season Cavan find themselves in the last 12 at the business end of the Bank of Ireland football championship while Meath, for a third successive season, have had the back door slammed in their face by an Ulster team.

“It is a great position to be in. Nobody will be worried about us going into the next game,” Cavan Manager, Martin McElkennon, said. “We are only cannon fodder for the rest of the year. We have another day and we will just go out there, enjoy ourselves, have another day and see what happens.”

As a Down man McElkenon was somewhat divorced from the Cavan-Meath rivalry.

“It is a long time since they beat Meath in championship football, half a century. Today it is their day.

“I knew all week it was an important game for Cavan but I did not know just how important it was until today. Meath had beaten us in the league this year and again last year but this time we got it right.”

Meath boss Sean Boylan reflected on a disappointing championship performance: “We just did not play. We never took our chances and we had plenty of them. We were guilty of silly fouls and in the end we paid the price.

“It was make or break for the lads but you can’t take from Cavan. They played better football. We had our chance after the penalty, the ball was kicked out, a player was fouled from behind, referee gave the free, ball was over the bar, end of story. It was very disappointing.”

He insisted they had enough chances to win a lot of matches but they just did not take them.

“It’s all about putting the ball over the bar and we have had a bit of a problem with that over the last couple of games but that’s the way life goes,” he said.

“It was not for the want of trying, it is just that on the day we did not seem to be able to get out of the traps and Cavan were very well prepared, took their chances better than we did and that was it.”

Cavan midfielder Dermot McCabe paid tribute to goalkeeper James Reilly for steadying the ship after the penalty.

“It should not have been that close at the end but the penalty came as a shock,” he said.

“James has a mighty kick-out and I think that saved us a bit. He always drops the ball opposite the the 40 yard man or the full-forward line and that’s what happened today and we got the free. Fair play to Finbarr (O’Reilly), he stepped up and took a great score.

“It has been a phenomenal turn around since the 21-point defeat by Tyrone.

We knew that was just too bad to be true. All you can do is keep working, improve on little things and each game we have improved on a few things and hopefully we will continue to improve.”