Winning start for footballers
January 13, 2012Monaghan 0-14, St. Mary's College, Belfast 0-6.
Monaghan's Dr McKenna Cup campaign is already 100% better than it was last year in that in 2011 they failed to win any of their three matches while this year they have got off to a winning start. In their opening game against St Mary's College Belfast in Clones on Sunday last they may have struggled for periods but ultimately they possessed that little bit more power than the students and ran out deserving winners and with eight points to spare at the finish. However it was only in the final stages that Monaghan asserted their superiority against a team where legs tired in the final quarter and Monaghan capitalised with five unanswered points in the final seven minutes of normal time to clinch victory. Monaghan gave inter-county debuts to three players for this match, Carl O'Connell, Tommy O'Neill and Ciaran Daly and introduced a number of other first timers but there were signs of ring rustiness in aspects of their play. Played in mild if somewhat damp and greasy conditions this was a game where the fare on offer never rose to any great heights although there were some passengers of good play from both sides but too often over elaboration or players taking the wrong option saw promising moves come to nothing. St Mary's for their part will look back on a game where they enjoyed quite a good deal of possession but their finishing was somewhat suspect and a total of 13 wides in all, six in the first half made for a situation where they could have been much closer. The students had dominated the first half and played some excellent football and it took the combined strengths of Darren Hughes at full-back, Vincent Corey at centre and cornerback Dermot Malone to repeatedly keep them at bay. Just one point separated the sides at half-time, Monaghan coming with two points in stoppage time after trailing for most of the half and had the students been a little more clinical in their finishing they could well have been further ahead.
Teams and Scorers: Monaghan: Mark Keogh, Carl O'Connell, Darren Hughes, Dermot Malone, Conor Galligan, Vincent Corey, Tommy O'Neill, Ciaran Daly, Paul Finlay 0-5 (1f), Matthew McKenna 0-2, Stephen Gollogly 0-2, James Turley 0-1, Ciaran Hanratty 0-2, Shane Smyth, Bernard O'Brien. Subs: Owen Duffy 0-2 for B O'Brien, Ronan McNally for C Galligan, James Bellew for C Daly, David Millar for M McKenna, Donal Morgan for T O'Neill.
St. Mary's College: Niall Morgan 0-2 (2f), Michael Slane, Daniel McBride, Eoin McArdle, Conor O'Hara, Gavin Teague, Michael Murray, Niall Donnelly, Richard O'Callaghan, Declan McCusker, Ronan Sexton, Niall Sludden, Christopher Conaghan 0-1, Oisin MacIomhair, Brian Doyle 0-2 (2f). Subs: Conor McMahon for O MacIomhair, Emmet Bradley 0-1 (f) for R O'Callaghan, Benny Herron for D McCusker, Thomas Canavan for C Conaghan, John Gilmore for R Sexton. Referee: Cathal O'Hagan (Tyrone).
REACTION.
"Finishing really was the difference at the end of the day" said st. Mary's manager, paddy Tally. "There was one period there in the second-half when we had five wides on the trot as well as missing a goal chance when we were only three points behind and that changed the game completely after that. In saying that however we probably lacked a little bit of strength today because when you're up against the county teams its physical strength that counts and we lost out there a little bit and it was really the small errors that let us down".
Monaghan manager Eamonn McEnaney was pleased to get the result in that it was 100% better than last year when Monaghan didn't win a game in the competition. "Yes its 100% better than last year, we stood here at this time last year after a game against Queens where we struggled and today we came up against a very fit St Mary's team who battled for everything but in fairness to our lads they responded. They are working hard on their individual programs and they are in good enough shape. Against that there was ring rustiness there and they gave the ball away but at the same time the honest endeavour was there for all to see and the most important thing today was a performance like that. I said to them before they went out that our last game last year was down in Tullamore in the All Ireland Qualifiers which was a very poor day out for us and it wasn't something that anyone could be proud of so with today being their first time out since that they had to do something and in my opinion today they went out and showed that they have a real pride in the Monaghan jersey and a real pride in themselves and for me that is a huge plus". Tweet
