Cavan impress to claim Armagh scalp

Cavan 1-15 Armagh 1-11: Cavan out-thought and out-fought a poor Armagh side to earn a convincing 1-15 to 1-11 win in the opening round of the Ulster championship at Breffni Park.

Apart from a slight wobble midway through the second half when Armagh took their lead back to a single point, Cavan were comfortable for most of the afternoon with championship debutant Martin Dunne scoring nine points, all but one from play.

Although Cavan’s iron-curtain approach had been flagged well in advance, they can’t have imagined it would work quite as well as it did in the opening period.

In flooding men back, they completely nullified the threat of Jamie Clarke in the Armagh attack. But the secondary effect was just as important, creating an ocean of space for their forwards to do damage.

Eugene Keating had a field day, setting up scores for Dunne and Damien O’Reilly and when Cian Mackey set off on a run from midfield in the 22nd minute, an enormous gap opened up for him. Faced with no Armagh defenders to slow his progress, he knifed into the heart of the full-forward line before planting a shot past Philip McEvoy.

It put Cavan 1-3 to 0-3 ahead and from there to half-time, the home side only made more hay. Dunne put some wayward frees behind him to notch two points from play and Niall McDermott clipped one of his own.

Armagh’s only response was a Stefan Forker point, leaving the half-time score a well-deserved 1-6 to 0-4 to Cavan.

They continued their good work at the start of the second half and pushed the lead out to six points through Keating.

Armagh raised a gallop in the third quarter, however, and points from Stefan Forker, Mark Shields and two frees from Aaron Kernan gave them some momentum.

They needed a goal, though, and were unlucky to see a brilliant Jamie Clarke effort pulled back by referee Maurice Deegan who didn’t play advantage after Clarke was fouled.

Soon after, Armagh did raise a green flag when substitute Ethan Rafferty hammered home through a forest of bodies to make it 1-10 to 1-9 in Cavan’s favour. But the home side didn’t panic and instead reeled off the next four points through Keating, Dunne (2) and James McEnroe.