The demands being made on GAA players' time, energy and commitment these days brooks no debate. However, for Truagh and Monaghan star Gary Meehan, such demands all amount to a veritable labour of love it seems even if 2001 delivered some bitter-sweet moments. A typical day in the life of Gary Meehan revolves around doing a day's work as one player in Ireland's still burgeoning construction industry, racing home to Truagh, gobbling down a bit to eat and hurrying off to club or county training. That's been Gary's routine for the most part of the past five years but is he complaining? Far from it. "I'm a Truagh player first and foremost and giving the club the kind of commitment that's needed is my priority. It's an honour though to play for the county as well and there's an extra sense of pride when you pull on the county jersey and most fellas playing the game would love to have the opportunity of representing Monaghan in a league or championship game. Despite the fact that he's still only 24, the rampaging attacker is one of the senior citizens of the current Monaghan senior side and it is to the likes of our man Meehan that Monaghan supporters tend to look to these days for leadership and inspiration on the field of play. A debutant at senior level during the reign of Mick McCormick, the Truagh stalwart arrived on the inter-county scene just shortly after the Longford native had steered his adopted county to a shock but excellent victory over Donegal in Ballybofey in the first round of the 1996 Ulster Senior Football Championship. It was a good time to come on the scene, he admits. "That win created a great buzz and sense of expectation among the supporters and I remember a lot of people were hoping that that team would go on and make the breakthrough in the following year or two. It didn't happen though." Still, Gary prefers to examine the here and now and, in this regard, he is pleased to report that the present Monaghan squad is "probably as good" as the squad which caught the eye in Ballybofey. "With the county having done so well at minor and under 21 levels in recent times, there is a lot of good young talent available to the county team management. "The success of the county underage teams is reflected in the quality of the players that I can see playing at club level, week in, week out. "Players at club level in Monaghan are fitter, stronger and more skilful now than when I first began to play for Truagh at adult level about eight years ago. Most players are playing with more confidence now too. "The fact that the standard is pretty even among the clubs at the moment adds to the sense of interest and anticipation among the players and the supporters too. "While 'Blayney have that bit of an edge right now, the fact that clubs like ourselves and Magheracloone and Clontibret have gotten to a couple of county finals and won a couple of Ward Cups shows that there's not that much between any of the sides in the county." Gary is unequivocal in his belief that football in Monaghan is in a healthier state than it has been for quite a number of years. Last summer's championship win over near-neighbours Fermanagh served to cement his opinion: "Beating Fermanagh was very important, especially after having lost to them for two years in a row. We knew we just had to beat them in 2001. "Although we had more or less a whole new set-up, I felt the omens were good for us going into the Ulster championship because Fermanagh were expected to win, everyone in the media were tipping them to go through. "Fermanagh were highly regarded by the media and maybe rightly so but we knew we are as good as anyone on our day and we knew that if everyone played well for the full 70 minutes, we'd beat Fermanagh and that's the way it turned out," adds Gary, a thorn in the side of the Ernesiders that day in Enniskillen from his centre-half forward berth. The obvious delight Gary feels in seeing Monaghan prove the doubters wrong by beating Fermanagh still radiates as he recalls the win. Dispensing of the Fermanagh bogey was, it appears, almost personal with some of the players, Meehan included. "Maybe we were guilty of over-estimating the importance of that win over Fermanagh but it did open a lot of eyes, especially when you consider how many of our own supporters weren't too confident beforehand about our ability to beat Fermanagh. "We went to Fermanagh with several new faces on the team and did the business and there was a great feeling in the camp in the aftermath of that win. "I remember the sort of buzz there was around the county after that game too. Unfortunately maybe too many supporters got carried away after Enniskillen because a lot of them couldn't see us being defeated by Cavan in the semi-final," the former minor and under 21 county star. But beaten Monaghan were. The team's profligacy in the first half in particular was deemed to be Monaghan's achilees heel in Clones that day. As one of the attackers on duty against the Breffni Blues, Meehan is honest enough to hold up his hand and acknowledge that there is a case to be answered. "No doubt about it. For my own part, I remember scoring a free but then missing another one late in the second half which would have brought us back on level terms. That was a costly miss. "Looking back on the match, we couldn't have asked much more of our defence or our midfield. We just didn't take our chances up front. "We were particularly bad in the first half. Declan Smyth was on fire in the opening 20 minutes and, collectively, the forwards should have made it count then. "There was nothing between us and Cavan that day but we just didn't click as a team. There's no doubt but that the forwards have to hold their hands up and take a lot of the blame for the defeat." And then came the game against Armagh. Gary reckons the game came too soon. "Just a week after losing to Cavan in the Ulster semi-final, we had to lift ourselves for the game with Armagh but I personally found that very difficult. "It was very hard to re-charge your batteries in such a short space of time and that is a weakness of the so-called back-door system. "I think if we had gotten a hiding against Cavan, instead of losing our narrowly, it would have been easier to pick ourselves off the floor for the Armagh game. "If we had played any sort of football in the first half against Armagh, things might have worked out differently but we didn't give it a go at all, didn't play to our potential and paid the price for that. The dressing-room after the Armagh defeat was a like a morgue." Interestingly, Gary remains a fan of the aforementioned back-door system and says that a county team can't get enough championship games, especially a county like Monaghan which, he says, is undergoing a constructive re-building process. He cites the success enjoyed by Westmeath and Sligo in 2001 as proof positive of the worthwhileness of the novel championship system. In reflecting on Monaghan's campaign, both league and championship in 2001, Gary is perhaps predictably philosophical when re-winding the clock. For instance, he says that the white and blues were unlucky to miss out on promotion in the league and believes that but for an under-par display away to Longford, that goal would have been achieved. Overall, Gary believes that there's not a lot of difference in class between the nine counties in Ulster. May 12th and another tilt at the race for the the Anglo-Celt Cup can't come quickly enough for him, it seems, as county training continues unabated. Gary says it's a similar situation on the domestic front regarding the clubs who'll take their starting positions in a couple of months for the race for the Mick Duffy Cup. Bet there'll be loads of bets going on our man Meehan to stay the course. Tweet

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