"Austin drives Cavan onwards." It is the sort of witty headline that Cavan's new manager Liam Austin feels obliged to vindicate if he is to make a success of his new role.

When that headline, relating to Cavan's win over Fermanagh in the first round of the Ulster championship, sprang off the pages of the local Anglo Celt newspaper his task seemed all the more onerous.

The local media and Cavan supporters in general may feel that Austin has a Formula One engine under him just waiting to be revved up. But it spluttered and almost stalled against Fermanagh.

The trials and tribulations of your average football manager went over the head of Liam Austin the player in the process of winning all that the game can offer during the 1980s and early '90s.

Since making the transition from being Down's towering star midfielder to the new boss at Breffni Park, Co Cavan, Austin has acquired an undeniable appreciation of the role of the football manager.

A win over Donegal in the Ulster senior football championship semi-final in Clones on Sunday is the immediate target. The pulse rate has quickened this week for the former All-Star as he endeavours to round off those worrying rough edges that showed up so alarmingly against Fermanagh.

"I appreciate much more now the difficulties of management. When you're a player you are worried about yourself and only yourself. You're focused on your performance. The team and so forth would have been of secondary importance. When you're a manager you are working with so many people, a panel of maybe 30 players each having a different personality, each with his own needs, wants and attitude," he says. .

"I enjoy it, I must admit, and I am working on it. I like taking on the central tasks that go with the job."

"You've got to be able to communicate with your players and always remain approachable."

"The ultimate reward for you is to gain the respect of the players. I regard successful communication with the whole squad as a real skill of management whether it be in football or business."

"Somebody was heard saying that I am a very hard task master but I don't ask the players to do anything that I wouldn't be prepared to do or didn't do as a player."

As a player, Austin generally controlled the Down midfield. His list of honours alone provides his present charges with much reason to respect him: an All-Ireland senior medal won in 1991, an All-Star award, three Ulster championship medals, a national League and All-Ireland under-21 medals and five Railway Cup medals

The respect is mutual. "I enjoy working with the fellas and the back-room team. They are a great bunch of guys. They are very focused on the game, they know what is required. Whatever is demanded of them is given and that's all I can ask for."

He encountered his initial "flutter of the heart" during the Fermanagh game. "I wouldn't fancy too many games like that one. It's not good for the heart."

Unlike so many of his counterparts, Austin does not regard the role of manager as the definitive one on the day of a match. "It is up to the boys on the field to take responsibility. I have told my players that it up to them to produce the goods and make things work."

"We didn't play well as a team against Fermanagh. There was a lot of pressure on them at home to a Fermanagh team that had injury problems. I don't think there is as much pressure on them this Sunday. They know what Donegal are about. They know that Donegal are a highly-rated team. In this context the boot is on the other foot.

"What impressed me most against Fermanagh was the do-or-die attitude of the team. Four to six years ago a Cavan team would have thrown in the towel and said `Hey, it's not our day here, we've had a couple of goals disallowed, we are not playing well, this team is in top form, let's forget about it and come back another day'."

Cavan's belated performance that day told him that "he has a battling team on his side".

"We didn't play well but we kept battling away and got the result. You can play all the fancy football you like but at the end of the day the result is what matters.

"We are also realistic enough to understand that this is a transitional period for us. We have lost a lot of top players."

When taking about the area of the field he was most familiar with as a player, Austin's midfield philosophy is clear. Obviously attempting to lift some of the pressure off ace Dermot McCabe, Austin says "I always regard midfield as a partnership. Dermot does a lot of work as an individual and a lot of work is going on around him. Dermot is an individual but midfield is a partnership that must keep working as a partnership."

Team strengths for Sunday? "The forward lines on both teams are very potent. Tony Boyle is a very formidable opponent to any team. I see him as a major threat. "Midfield will be a hard-working battle. Our defence was shown up a bit the last day but I have to counteract that argument by saying that we were probably meeting some of the best full forwards in the game. The Gallaghers would give any defenders a run for their money."