By Paul Keane

Cavan manager Mickey Graham admitted it was important that the new Allianz NFL Division 3 champions rediscovered their 'edge' ahead of the beginning of the Ulster SFC.

Last year's Division 4 title winners approached this evening's Division 3 decider against Fermanagh seeking to restore vital momentum following back to back defeats to Antrim and Fermanagh.

They'd already secured promotion after five consecutive wins, leaving Graham with the luxury of shaking up his team for Rounds 6 and 7 though they were back to what would be considered full strength for this evening's final.

The 2020 Ulster champions drew on all that quality and big game experience within their ranks to overcome Fermanagh at the second time of asking with a strong second-half performance in particular.

Asked if it was important to create fresh momentum ahead of the Championship - which begins for Cavan against Armagh or Antrim on April 22 - Graham nodded.

"Yeah, it was, because coming off the back of two defeats in the previous two games, people were probably questioning the position we found ourselves in after the first five (games) and wondering had we lost our edge," he said. "So it was a good response from the lads there this evening I have to say."

Graham said that while it may have looked like he was resting key players at times in recent weeks, it was often more out of necessity than design.

"A lot of it was forced on us with injuries and knocks that we had," he said. "We were probably forced as well that we didn't want to take a risk going into the last league game with Fermanagh. We decided to hold onto them for tonight and thankfully it paid off."

Former captain Dara McVeety, a key figure in defence for Cavan this season, 2-2022 Tailteann Cup finalists Gerard Smith and Paddy Lynch and Ryan O'Neill all returned to the Cavan team for the decider.

But it still took the favourites a while to get going with Fermanagh 1-3 to 0-5 up at half-time in the all Ulster derby.

"We felt that we were playing within ourselves, we made a lot of handling errors and probably gave the ball away too cheaply," said Graham. "I thought in the second-half we started to work harder, we forced a lot of turnovers and the substitutions that came in made a big difference as well and gave a fresh emphasis for us pushing forward."