Dublin aren't unbeatable, Cavan boss Mickey Graham insists

'We'll go about trying to improve our game and to try to put the processes in place to try to help us close that gap'

Sat, 05 Dec, 2020 - 21:07

Paul Keane

Mickey Graham insists Dublin can still be beaten this year despite his Cavan team slipping to a 15-point All-Ireland semi-final loss.

The result was in keeping with the five-in-a-row winners' dominance of this year's Championship campaign, breezing through to the final with 69 points to spare.

That's an average winning margin of over 17 points per game and they'll be roaring favourites to complete the six-in-a-row on December 19 against Mayo or Tipperary.

"I believe in sport and on any given day anybody can beat anybody," maintained Graham.

"You can have a bad day at the office and the opposition can play above themselves on any day. It will happen, whether it will happen this year I don't know but I'm sure Mayo or Tipperary will be looking forward to getting an opportunity.

We had our opportunity, we failed, so it's up to somebody else to stand up and take them on.

Graham said that his Ulster title winners simply weren't let play the game they wanted to against Dessie Farrell's Dublin.

"There were lots of things you'd want to do differently to be honest but they're just so strong in every department and anything we tried they were able to nullify it," he said. "We tried to go long, we tried to run at them, we tried to get width and they were just so well prepared for everything we threw at them.

Cavan's Stephen Murray, Martin Reilly, Ciaran Brady at the end of the game. Picture: INPHO/Bryan Keane

"Look, you can't fault the lads, they gave it a go at least. We could have come up here and decided we're going to go for a moral victory and parked the bus but we didn't. I thought that was brave of the lads too."

Graham refused to feel sorry for himself and for Cavan after being mowed down by perhaps the greatest team ever.

"They've raised the bar and it's up to every other county in Ireland to get up to that standard and we can make complaints about funding and facilities but it's up everybody else to raise their own standards," he said.

"We've seen first hand what they produced tonight and we'll look back and say, 'How do we get there, to that level?' We'll go about trying to improve our game and to try to put the processes in place to try to help us close that gap, not just on Dublin but on a couple of bigger teams in the country."