With home advantage tomorrow and a clean bill of health, apart from long-term hamstring victim Darren Rabbitte, Cavan will go into the game with confidence.

But Keoghan knows his side face a tough assignment and he is under no illusions about the quality of player that Down possesses.

"I think that Down have very dangerous forwards," the new Cavan boss admitted. "Benny Coulter is probably one of the top five or six forwards in Ulster. Daniel Hughes and Dan Gordon are two key men in midfield.

"Down didn't become a bad team overnight, they are going through a transition period and I think it is going to be a very tough game for us."

Cavan have not the Ulster SFC title since 1997 but Keoghan believes that 10 years on, his current crop are once again ready to challenge for the Anglo Celt cup.

"I believe that we have the talent in Cavan to win an Ulster championship. Although we aren't playing well, we did gain promotion from Division Two.

"We grinded out results (in the league) and we showed character in some games. Maybe that hasn't been there before.

"We won tight games and we came back in games that we were two or three points down so the lads showed character which maybe hadn't been there for a few years and hopefully they will show the same character again this weekend."

Keoghan feels that his squad has some much-needed strength in depth at the moment.

"For the first time this year we will be able to pick from a reasonably full panel with 25 lads genuinely looking for the first 15 places. It's probably the strongest championship panel in the last three or four years that Cavan has seen."

Ahead of the championship opener, the Cavan boss praised his fellow trainer Paul Grimley for a lot of the positives which have been seen from this side in the last few months.

"Paul is probably the top coach around, I haven't worked with anyone like him before," Keoghan admitted.

"I think the set-up is very professional at the moment and I think that the players are responding to that."