by John P Graham

Malachy O'Rourke expects Monaghan's Ulster SFC semi-final clash with Donegal to be close and admits his charges will have to start better than they did against Down.

The defending Ulster champions blitzed the Mourne County in the second half but made a lethargic start at Clones on June 5th; a repeat of that at Breffni Park on Saturday would see them surrender the Anglo-Celt Cup, according to their manager:

"Monaghan and Donegal is now a very familiar pairing and there is not much that we don't know about each other, but it's a very healthy rivalry and there has generally been very little between us in any of the games we've played in the last 5 or 6 years.

"I don't think Saturday night will be much different because neither of us will be changing our style or our approach that much and whoever comes out at the end, and hopefully it will be ourselves, will be narrow winners, that's the way I see it.

"We need to improve on our first-half performance against Down and I certainly would hope that we would get a better start than we did that day in Clones. We were very sluggish early on and that has been a bit of a pattern for us, even during the league and that's one area where we will have to improve against Donegal because if we play against them in the early stages the way we played against Down early on in Clones, Donegal would be 5 or 6 points up and maybe more, and it would be very hard to turn it around.

"We have to improve our use of the ball, we have to improve our defensive system and basically we have to tighten up all round, because if we don't against a team like Donegal we will find ourselves in arrears. Our mental attitude on the day too will be very important because neither of us will have any major surprises regarding our formations or our line-outs and basic approach and in those very tight situations it will come down to our mental attitude, where we will have to be able to respond when the pressure comes on."

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