Dr. McKenna Cup
January 03, 2013This Sunday newly appointed Monaghan manager Malachy O'Rourke has his first competitive outing when his charges take on St Mary's University College, Belfast, in the opening round of matches in this year's Dr McKenna Cup competition.
Malachy O'Rourke has a detailed knowledge of the GAA scene in Monaghan and would have taken in the final stages of all three championships as well as the latter stages of all the leagues where he expressed himself as being very impressed with the level of competition right across the leagues and championships and the high standard of play that he saw in what he described as very exciting finals. O'Rourke also held a number of trail games and eventually drew up a 26-man panel for this year's McKenna Cup competition. There are a number of new faces but there are a number of established players who are not included for a variety of reasons one of which is that some of them, like Colin Walshe, are involved with their respective colleges in the various pre-season tournaments. The McKenna Cup panel does not include Darren Hughes, Colin Walshe, Vincent Corey, Paul Finlay, Stephen Gollogly, James Turley or Dessie Mone.
St Mary's College on the other hand are coming with quite an experienced panel and a group of players who have already reached the final of the Ryan Cup where they lost out to the Dublin Institute and the level of experience they have can be gauged from the fact that all but eight of last year's panel are there again this year. The players who are no longer involved with the college are Michael Slane, Eoin McArdle, Gavin Teague, Rory O'Callaghan, Chris Conaghan, Conor McMahon, Oisin McIomhair and Thomas Canavan.
As in previous years the Monaghan management will be using this year's competition to blood new players and to assess some of the emerging players in a competitive situation to see if they can produce the form that would see them make the National Football League panel. For St Mary's College though it is a different agenda as they will be using the McKenna Cup as preparation for their forthcoming Sigerson Cup competition, a tournament they will hope to do well in this year. Having lost the final of the Higher Education League division 1 however would mean that the only way success in the Sigerson would be measured would be by winning the competition outright and St. Mary's manager Paddy Tally would see the McKenna Cup matches as ideal preparation.
The competition though was dealt something of a blow recently when Queens University Belfast pulled out of the competition due to the fact that quite a number of their inter county stars were not available to them and consequently they felt that the competition would not serve the purpose they had in mind. It had been suggested also some time earlier that Donegal would be looking at whether they would take part this year or not but that has since been ironed out although it is expected that it will be fringe players and those who are being tried out who will feature for them.
A win on Sunday would be an ideal start for Malachy O'Rourke but defeating St Mary's would not be his first or most important goal and he is on record as saying that the first and most important goal is what he would call an attitude goal, which is to assemble a panel of players who will push themselves to the absolute limits in order to achieve success. "If we achieve this I have no doubt that success will follow". That success though would be a little further down the road than Sunday's McKenna Cup game, although a winning start would certainly be a great boost. Sunday's game in fact is a rerun of Monaghan's opening McKenna Cup match last year when they defeated the students by points 8 points in Clones but that was only gaining some revenge for the three points defeat inflicted on them by St Mary's College back in 2009.
The win last year left Monaghan 100% better off than they were in 2011 as they failed to win any of their three matches that year. Last they may have struggled for periods but ultimately they possessed that little bit more power than the students and ran out deserving winners 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. It finished Monaghan 0-14, St. Mary's College, Belfast 0-6. Team manager Malachy O'Rourke will pick his starting 15 from the following panel: Mark Keogh, Rory Beggan, Conor Galligan, Fintan Kelly, Kieran Duffy, Ronan Mc Nally, Owen Coyle, Martin Mc Elroy, Karl O'Connell, Drew Wylie, Owen Lennon, Gerard McArdle, Neil Mc Adam, Stephen Smith, Owen Duffy, Shane McQuillan, Dick Clerkin, Dermot Malone, Kieran Hughes, Padraig Donaghy, Thomas O'Neill, Keith Mc Enaney, Donal Hahessy, Matthew McKenna, Paul McArdle, Conor Mc Manus. Throw-in in Clones on Sunday is at 2.00pm. Tweet
