Newcomer Gareth ‘Nesty’ Smith impressed in his debut season with Cavan
took on their neighbours, with Carr handing out chances to newcomers Dane O’Dowd and Mark Johnston and returning pair Michael Hannon and Ray Cullivan, before the sides met again in two months’ time. The teams were even during the opening 35 minutes, with Cavan edging the 0-6 to 0-5 half-time lead, but Fermanagh’s wides’ tally continued to rise into the secondhalf and it proved their undoing as Smith, Mackey and McKeever contributed the scores, along with two from play from midfielder Lorcan Mulvey, to assure their side a 0-11 to 0-7 win would bring the curtain down on a mixed league campaign, where narrow defeats to Louth and Sligo proved costly in their hopes for promotion. Mackey, who was arguably Cavan’s top performer in the league, indicated afterwards that the Breffni men were unfortunate to miss out on Division Two football for 2011. “At the start of the year we hoped to get promoted, but it didn’t go according to plan. But we regrouped and started to improve towards the end of the league, getting a couple of wins under our belts,” said the Castlerahan man. “We’re unlucky not to get promoted, but that’s just the way it goes. It’s all a stepping-stone – we improved the whole way through the league.” Arguably, only Kenneth Sweeney’s late goal in the Sligo defeat denied Carr’s team promotion and that suggested a marked improvement on 2009, and with key-man Sean Johnston returning to fitness Breffni supporters were optimistic heading into the big clash with Fermanagh on June 12. Carr himself admitted after the league win over the Ernesiders that he was wary of the threat that they would carry, particularly after showing them the exit door in Ulster the year previous. “I have got warnings from all over the place saying that Fermanagh can play like that in the league and then come
out and play championship football,” said the Tipperary native. “Joe Kernan reminded me of that too and they can be very dangerous. Cavan are not a team that can take another Ulster team for granted. In one sense, we know that we can beat them, but then the tables always get turned in Gaelic football and you just hope it's not going to be this time.” Carr handed out six Ulster SFC debuts right up the central positions of his team for the Fermanagh game to goalkeeper Fintan Reilly, Tomas Corr (full-back), Eoin McGuigan (centre-back), Alan Clarke (left half-back), Gareth Smith (centre-forward), Mickey Brennan (full-forward). Contrastingly, Cavan Gaels club-mates Sean Johnston and Nicholas Walsh were welcomed back from and ruled out through injury, respectively. The opening stages at Kingspan Breffni Park were tit-fortat as the hosts edged a 0-4 to 0-3 lead after the first 20 minutes, as the superb David Givney, Cian Mackey, Paul Brady and Gareth Smith fired over the Blues’ scores. They pushed on from there as Brennan, Smith and Johnston opened up a three-point lead, but the backs were struggling to handle the red-hot Ryan Carson at the other end and he helped to reduce Fermanagh’s deficit by 0-8 to 0-7 at halftime. Fermanagh took the lead early on in the second-half before Cavan hit back through a ‘45’ from the faultless Smith and an excellent score from Johnston, but the Breffni men withered in the closing quarter as they failed to account for the quality of Seamus Quigley, who came off the bench to lash over two sublime points, and when Ryan Carson snuck in behind their defence to bang in the game’s only goal a 1-13 to 0-13 defeat was sealed. Carr offered no excuses afterwards as his team were badly caught out (and their place at the bottom of the pile in 11