By Rory Gallagher

LAST Saturday, Antrim gave the most complete performance of any team, outside of Tyrone, in the provincial Championship this year. When you look at their players I don't think it was that big a surprise. They have St Gall's lads and Cargin lads who are the backbone of the team. Plus they have more experience than Cavan. Cavan have a lot of players who only play junior and intermediate football and that showed at times.

Antrim were totally dominant and if Tomas McCann had finished that goal then it would have been lights out for Cavan.

The big thing for me was that they were much more composed and keyed in to what they were doing. That was very clear from the way every individual was playing.

Bar the first five minutes, there was never any doubt that Antrim were going to win that game. It took them a wee bit to settle, but after that, they were in complete control. Liam Bradley was 100 percent right when he said that they should have won by about ten points.

Cavan never looked like they were going to break them down, nor did they threaten to go ahead. They never got one ball to Seanie Johnston in a one-on-one position to take on Colin Brady in a scoring area.

Liam Bradley knows better than most from watching his sons, Paddy and Eoin, how teams try to stop them from getting into one-on-one situations. He set a team up to starve Cavan of the ball. Cavan didn't have the players out the field to make the most of their extra man and that's very disappointing from a Cavan point of view.

It remains to be seen how Fermanagh go, but maybe Cavan got carried away with their performance last day out. I tipped Antrim last week because I believed that Antrim have better players and the reality is that while Cavan have had a fair turnover of managers over the years they are not really progressing.

I would say that it was a big mistake not having Dermot McCabe in the team, either at midfield or full-forward, he would have given them someone to win the ball out the field, or a presence for Johnston to feed off inside.

Niall McKeever probably gave the best display that he has ever given for Antrim, for the first 55 minutes anyway. Nicholas Walsh and Ciaran Galligan probably came into the game a bit more towards the end. But they weren't in the game for the first half. Aodhan Gallagher wasn't in the game in the first half, but Antrim were much hungrier around that area for breaks and loose ball. They were a bit like Tyrone in that when they got the ball in that area they got it out of there very quickly.

Liam Bradley deserves credit for bringing in Andy McClean, Terry O'Neill and Kevin Niblock as they all came into the panel after the eight regulation games of the National League. Despite going undefeated Bradley realised that the team needed more. They needed restructured and they needed something different.

After they got beat by Sligo in the National League final he totally transformed his full-forward line. He's now playing Michael McCann and Sean Burke inside which has given them a whole new dimension. They are natural ball-winners and they give the team some shape. It allows the rest of the team to get forward, Tyrone-style. McCann and Burke are not going to score prolifically, but they create an awful lot of damage and they hold the ball up for when the support comes and they use the ball very intelligently.

Despite prospering in the league he has transformed the team for the championship.

Bradley still knew that the team was weak and that at times the full-back line needed cover. He also identified that they needed ball-winners inside.

Break out piece on Armagh Monaghan

At the start of the year I felt that Armagh were just in transition and unless they changed their style of play they were going to have a very short summer. I still believe that.

I think that Peter McDonnell is obsessed with protecting his full-back line. I saw that last year and again when they played Tyrone. Unless he sends his team out to play man-to-man and let in route-one ball to Steven McDonnell and Ronan Clarke, they will come up short. They have good enough players and even though they are in transition, they have the players to make the last eight, definitely and possibly the last four. But that can only happen if they go out and play man-on-man football and stop this obsession with protecting their full-back line. They don't have to do that because the one thing that Armagh have is brilliant defenders.

Bearing in mind what has happened to Derry and how they were shown up, you have to wonder where Monaghan are at. I think if Monaghan bring the sort of game that they brought to Kerry last year and go out and play football, they can compete with Armagh. That's because Monaghan have a lot of good footballers too.

Whoever wins it is going to be in a great opportunity – because of the quality of football out there and the middling draw – to at least make the last eight.

I honestly think that both managers will have learned some important things from their last games. Banty may as well throw caution to the wind because he is probably in his last year. Peter McDonnell is under pressure after such poor performances for long periods against Tyrone.

I'm expecting a free-flowing game. Neither team will be as obsessed with protecting their full back line. I think that they have to have confidence as they have nothing to lose at this stage, once you go into the qualifiers there is no point in saying 'what if' after it. They may as well go out and take the game by the scruff of the neck.

However, I would hesitantly tip Monaghan to win it.