Cavan stage dramatic comeback to beat Westmeath
James Smith of Cavan in action against Conor Dillon of Westmeath. Pic: Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile
“To a man, we weren’t happy at half-time and there was a lot of soul searching to be done.”
So said victorious Cavan manager Raymond Galligan after a pulsating game in Mullingar, when the visitors recovered from a 12-point deficit at half-time to edge out Westmeath - managed by former Breffni County star Dermot McCabe - in an incident-packed game played on a heavy pitch.
Westmeath had the aid of a strong wind in the first half – Cavan opting for that scenario after winning the toss. The winners opened the scoring via James Smith after 80 seconds. The same player scored his side’s second point all of 16 minutes later, but in between the two scores Westmeath went on a scoring spree registering 0-12 in the process. Eight of these came via four two-pointers.
Westmeath were well in control when leading by 0-17 to 0-4 with 32 minutes on the clock. However, an incident in the 33rd minute between Jack Geoghegan and James Smith saw the Westmeath man pick up a second yellow (and red) and his opponent a first yellow, while Jamie Gonoud picked up a black card for getting involved. At the interval, the Lake County deceptively led by 0-17 to 0-5.
On the change of ends, Cavan gradually took control and dominated possession from kick-outs taken from both ends of the pitch and the gap was down to three points (0-18 to 0-15) with 45 minutes on the clock, the lively Oisín Brady doing most of the damage for the winners.
A point apiece from Luke Loughlin and Danny McCartan steadied home fans’ nerves, but the relief was temporary. Gerard Smith made the most of a turnover by soloing almost half the length of the pitch before slotting the ball low to the net in the 58th minute.
A black card soon followed for Cavan sub Killian Clarke, before a great two-pointer by Dara McVeety in the 62nd minute put Galligan’s troops ahead for the first time (1-18 to 0-20) since the third minute.
They always looked the likelier winners from that moment onwards, and Westmeath’s woes were compounded when they picked up their second red card when Gonoud got a yellow with five minutes remaining to go with his earlier black.
Galligan praised his leaders for the comeback and also lauded the impact of his bench, stating: “We lost over half of the breaking ball in the first half in and around midfield, and the first 15/20 minutes of the second half were always going to be crucial. We won a lot of possession then and our big players stood up when we needed them.”
Both managers were a little confused by aspects of the new rules when a team is down numerically.
For his part, McCabe, whose side has lost all four games to date in very close encounters, stated: “We were down to 13 men for a good spell and conceded a lot of scores in that period. We’re down a lot of lads from last year, but we’re taking learnings from all the games and we’ll work hard again in preparation for the visit of Meath next week.”
G McKiernan 0-5 (tpf, 3f), G Smith 1-1, D McVeety (2 tp), O Brady (tpf, 1f) 0-4 each, J Smith 0-3, Cian Madden, D Lovett (tp) 0-2 each, O Kiernan 0-1.
D McCartan (2 tpf, 1f), L Loughlin (tpf, tp, 1f) 0-6 each, K O’Sullivan, R Wallace (tp) 0-2 each, B Cooney, M Whittaker, L Dolan, C Dillon, B Kelly 0-1 each.
G O’Rourke; N Carolan, B O’Connell, J McLoughlin; P Faulkner, C Brady, L Fortune; J Smith, E Crowe; G Smith, D McVeety, O Kiernan; R O’Neill, G McKiernan, O Brady. Subs: Cian Madden for O’Neill (h-t), Conor Madden for Fortune (h-t), K Clarke for Crowe (45), D Lovett for Kiernan (56), S McEvoy for O Brady (69).
C McCormack; J Gonoud, C Drumm, J Geoghegan; R Wallace, C Dillon, M Whittaker; S McCartan, R Connellan; D McCartan, B Cooney, K O’Sullivan; L Dolan, L Loughlin, B Kelly. Subs: K Martin for Cooney (h-t), E Gaffney for Kelly (42), D Scahill for Dolan (53), R Forde for Martin (62), S Smith for Whittaker (67).
D O’Mahoney (Tipperary).
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