McCabe battling to be fit for Derry tie

ALL-IRELAND SFC QUALIFIER: Sentimentality is not a weakness frequently ascribed to Eamonn Coleman, yet he can't help getting a little stirred up by Cavan's trip to Celtic Park in Derry this Sunday.

As the only All-Ireland football qualifier set for Sunday afternoon the match will fall under the inevitable spotlight, and there is no shortage of background material to add weight to the occasion.

While Cavan have been recently refired by Coleman's management, his heart will always be in Derry - the county he led to their first All-Ireland title in 1993.

Yesterday Coleman declined to talk about what the return trip meant to him, but it's safe to assume it's the one county he prayed to avoid.

"I suppose Eamonn's first love will always be Derry," says Cavan midfielder Dermot McCabe. "I wasn't there to see his reaction to the draw, and I haven't really talked to him about it. Of course it must be a strange week for him. But then he probably doesn't know as many members of the current panel as well as he would have known them in the past."

McCabe had a hunch about the draw. With Coleman now on their side, as well as his trainer Martin McElkennon, there was something inevitable about the two counties being drawn together.

"Well if I were a gambling man I would have called Derry," admits McCabe. "There is nearly always some sort of history to the teams drawn in these rounds. I just thought that with Eamonn and Martin involved we were bound to draw Derry. And it worked out that way.

"And of course it's going to be difficult, not least of all because it involves a three-hour trip on Sunday morning just to get there. That makes for an early start and a long day."

McCabe has other concerns about Sunday's game besides the road trip. Just when it appeared the knee injury suffered last February was clearing up, he suffered a further setback in the Ulster semi-final against Armagh - where Cavan performed so courageously before eventually going down by two points.

After coming on late in the first half to replace Peter Reilly, McCabe was soon hit by a sharp pain: "It was when I went up to catch a kick-out that I landed awkwardly. I don't know whether I hit some rough patch or what, or the fact that I had only played a match or two coming into it. But it has certainly been a roller- coaster few weeks for me."

Something was damaged in his right heel, just at the side of the ankle. Various scans and X-rays showed nothing broken, but McCabe's role in Sunday's game is undecided. He is optimistic about at least playing some part of the game.

"That is the hope, all right. It had been sore to the point that I wasn't even able to walk on it properly. In the last day or two that at least has improved, but the real test will be how it feels at training tomorrow evening. But I've done very little work at all on the field since the Armagh game. So it all depends on how things go over the next few days."

Coleman will wait until that training session before finalising his line-up, but he's bound to give McCabe careful consideration with his midfield options so limited. Pearse McKenna is definitely out through suspension; the injured Peter Reilly is also out; and Trevor Crowe is still preferred at centre back.

Even though he's not fully fit, McCabe's influence on the Cavan team remains strong. The 28-year-old's county career stretches back to 1994; he was part of the Ulster title-winning team in 1997, and has been a class act for Ireland in International Rules tests against Australia.

The quarter-final replay against Down highlighted that quality. Called into action for the second half, McCabe scored a thunderous goal and set-up another for Jason Reilly. After the Armagh match Coleman said Cavan would definitely have won if McCabe had been fully fit.

"I don't know about that," laughs McCabe. "It was a nice thing for him to say, and I suppose we do have a lot of young players on the team that haven't been involved in that many championship matches.

"And people might say Derry's form is not good. But you'd have said the same thing about Cavan just a few weeks ago, say after the first Down match. We didn't seem to be going very well back then. But all it takes is a good 15 or 20 minutes of championship football to turn the season around. Derry will have prepared well and if they get a run going you don't know what will happen."

Derry will also be missing some high-profile players - including captain Seán Marty Lockhart. The experienced defender has been suffering from a leg infection, while one of the possible replacements, Paul McFlynn, is also an injury doubt.