Focus on Michael Murphy or any one Donegal player in today’s Ulster final and Cavan will be in trouble, warns Breffni boss Mickey Graham.
Murphy was superb in Donegal’s impressive semi-final win over Tyrone and usually when the captain calls the tune as he did against the Red Hands two weeks ago, Donegal win.
Asked about his plans for curbing Murphy’s influence in today’s 29,000 sellout at Clones, and Graham quipped: “What will I do with Michael Murphy? I’ll tie him up.
“Look, Michael is probably the best player in the country at the moment, his all-round game is excellent and it is going to be a big ask for us to keep him quiet for 70 minutes.
“But they have a lot of quality all over the field and Michael Murphy is only one of many problems we will have in the final.
“We have to focus on our own performance, trust ourselves and make sure that we play to our strengths - then hopefully we can come out on the right side of the individual battles.”
Graham and his assistants Dermot McCabe and Martin Corey have got their match-ups right so far in what’s been one of the best Ulster championships in years.
Players like Dara McVeety, Niall Murray, Conor Moynagh, Killian Clarke and Gearoid McKiernan have excelled at different times but it has been the all-round collective which has carried the Breffni blue back to an Ulster final for the first time since 2001.
There has to be a concern that the occasion will prove to be too much for some Cavan players, as it was 12 months ago for Fermanagh who performed poorly against Donegal in last year’s provincial decider.
“It’s something we have to address because we know the occasion isn’t going to get to Donegal,” admitted Graham.
“They have been there and done that, and this is their eighth final in nine years so it’s second nature to them.
“There are some days the players you expect to step up to the mark don’t, and others do, so you have to trust the lads you have and let focus on their own game, because they will cause Donegal headaches too.”
Donegal’s defence hasn’t been tested yet, though Fermanagh did expose gaps through the middle even if they failed to take a lot of the chances they created.
Tyrone’s direct game caused them no difficulty, but in the last few minutes when Tyrone ran at them, they were again chinks which Cavan will hope to expose.
Donegal look poised to make it back-to-back Ulster titles, but a Cavan win would be some story.
They are way out in front of the pack with 37 Ulster titles, but they’ve only won one – in 1997 – in the last 50 years.
“The hunger and the desire is still the same as it always was,” adds Graham, who won the Anglo Celt as a player in ‘97.
“Supporters have had nothing to shout about since we were last in the final 2001, and that is just too barren a spell for county of our tradition.”
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