Derry: 2-13
E Muldoon 1-3, G McGonagle 1-2 (penalty, free), A Tohill 0-4 (all frees), P Bradley 0-3, R Rocks 0-1.
Cavan: 1-05
L Reily 0-4 (1 free), F Cahill 1-0, P Reilly 0-1 (free).
Referee: B White (Wexford).
Booked: Derry - H Downey, B Murray, D Heaney, G McGonagle, G Coleman, P McFlynn, D O'Neill; Cavan - A Lambe, T Farrelly, P Smith, J Reilly, F Cahill (twice), D McCabe, L Reilly, B Lynch.
Sent off: Cavan - F Cahill (Two bookings).
In the doldrums around the drumlins. The home fans trudged up the hill at Breffni Park early yesterday after bearing witness to another impoverished summer. Derry came and steamrolled over their dreams emphatically in a game which was dominated by one colour; yellow.
Sixteen times Brian White flashed his card yesterday and eventually the roulette stopped at Cavan's Fintan Cahill, whose reckless lunge at Anthony Tohill in the 52nd minute was enough to earn him an early shower. Yesterday's avalanche of cards eclipses the record set last may in Dr Cullen park when the Westmeath-Carlow match featured 14 yellows.
So it was no day for that most unfortunate of breeds, the purist. Despite a typically sublime pass from Geoffrey McGonagle and some sweet kicking by Enda Muldoon, this was a game of chilling grimness. And afterwards, Derry boss Eamon Coleman was wonderfully unrepentant.
"The performance? When does the performance ever matter? The only thing that matters is that you're ahead at the finish. We have been involved in classics in '94 against Down and lost, against Cavan in '97 and lost. Wasn't a classic today but we are in the Ulster semi-final."
Ain't that the truth. The visitors trotted out in the sunshine and took this match by the scruff of the neck as early as the eighth minute, when Enda Muldoon swept up after some defensive hesitancy and thundered a shot past Brendan McCormack. The muted reaction of the home crowd suggested that even though they had arrived in their usual numbers, it was with a new sense of fear. All the bleak forecasts were materialising in the first quarter. Tohill and McGilligan had the way of it at midfield, despite the trojan early input of Dermot McCabe.
Muldoon, a willing and able target man, was causing nightmares for Terry Farrelly at the edge of the square and in Paddy Bradley, Derry have unearthed a forward glimmering with the same sharpness as Joe Brolly but with none of the theatrics.
There were isolated spells when Cavan attacked with a lightning intent redolent of the already dimming vintage year of 1997, and for a brief period midway through the first half, they teased us with the promise of another day to defy the odds.
Trailing by 1-3 to Peter Reilly's solitary free, Dermot McCabe burst through the seige and thumped a long, perfect ball over the last line for Fintan Cahill. The full forward left Sean Lockhart for dead with a sidestep and fired his shot past Michael Conlon.
It seemed like the first error Lockhart had committed in a Derry shirt. Three minutes later, the Derry full-back line creaked again and home optimism rose sharply. But overall, Cavan lacked that snap and only Larry Reilly continued to take the game to Derry, at times dizzying Gary Coleman with his turns and nailing three fine points.
"You make a mistake at the back and you are punished. Up front, nobody notices. I think that Larry Reilly was the best Cavan player on the field and I also think Gary (Coleman) did a fine job on him because Larry Reilly is one great player. And I wish he was a Derry man. But when you stop the supply line for Dermot McCabe, you stop Cavan and we completely stopped that today."
So it went, with Cavan living off scraps and even proving profligate with most of those. The sequence at the ebb of the first half illustrated that, when Reilly screwed a kickable free wide with the scores at 1-2 to 1-7. Derry thundered downfield, McGonagle latched onto a half-break by McCabe and thumped a score.
Cavan's fate was sealed over the first 10 minutes after the break, which were at times breathtaking in their sheer awfulness. Both sides seemed to forget where the posts were and Brian White was asked to pull more than Paul Daniels. You all know the scene by now - minuscule wingers shaping up to each other like dancefloor tough guys. Why Cavan, small if pacy, chose to embark on this path is one for the post-mortem. After Cahill was sent marching, the outcome seemed even more inevitable and Derry took it home at a canter. The pressure on their defence was relentless, with only Anthony Forde and Gerry Sheridan looking up to the task.
"No, we didn't perform on the day. While we were physically committed and all that, in the second half we had one or two early chances which didn't go in and Derry built on that," assessed Val Andrews later.
Pleading blindness for the sending-off, Andrews was philosophical about the preponderance of bookings. "Sixteen cards, yeah, I dunno the breakdown again but it was a tough championship game and I wouldn't moan about it. We didn't moan last year and we are certainly not going to moan this year. We got beaten but our lads went out and tried their hardest and I'm exceptionally proud of them for that. It wasn't good enough today."
Not by a long shot. So the Derry shadow stretches a wee bit further across Ulster. They have seen more polished days and perhaps played within themselves. A sweet crossfield pass by McGonagle for Rocks led to a penalty, which McGonagle himself converted to put a gloss on the scores. The reappearance of Seamus Downey and Joe Cassidy and the sight of Joe Brolly (smiling) afterwards underlined the fact that they still have artillery in reserve. Now they have the slightly surreal prospect of a Saturday evening league date in Clones.
"Ah, next Saturday doesn't really matter," sighed Eamonn Coleman. "League final was last week, it's gone, doesn't matter to us. We are concentrating on the championship. We'll turn up and play but Clones at a quarter past six on a Saturday? We could do without going."
His eyes cracked at the trademark smile, as if to admit his words can sometimes be taken lightly. As for his team? It's early days yet.
