Terry Hyland blamed a lack of experience for Cavan's dismal All-Ireland Qualifier exit at the hands of Roscommon on Saturday evening.

With Martin Dunne, Killian Clarke, Rory Dunne and Cian Mackey unavailable, the Breffni Blues were forced into fielding an exceptionally young side as Roscommon repeated their Allianz League Division 3 final victory with surprising ease.

"We don't want to make excuses, but we probably were short six or seven of our first choice players," the Cavan manager pointed out.

"We have a panel of 35 lads who have worked hard all year and they got their chance in the championship, but they just came up short which is a pity.

"We've a lot of young guys coming through that probably don't have the experience yet. It takes time and it takes harder games in those harder leagues to get that experience. Two or three years down the road these boys will be chomping at the bit for the championship."

Hyland, who wants to remain in the hot-seat, admitted it was a huge disappointment for Cavan not to have built on last year's exciting run to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

"It's very hard to peak for two championships in-a-row and maybe we have that syndrome in Cavan for the last couple of years. We have to change that around," he added. Tweet

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