After five consecutive first round Ulster SFC defeats, Monaghan football supporters were rewarded for their Job-like patience when Fermanagh were put to the sword in the championship last June. The team-management's decision to plump for youth certainly worked the oracle - at least in the short-term. The process of developing a senior Monaghan county football team capable of winning the Anglo-Celt Cup could be said, in industrial production parlance, to be at the 'work-in-progress' stage right now. The landscape in Monaghan has changed immeasurably since the halcyon days of the late seventies to mid-eighties era. The dreamscape festooned with provincial championship and national league trophies has long since dissipated. Indeed, up until this year, a solitary provincial championship victories had eluded the white and blues each season since Donegal were sensationally downed (1-14 to 0-8) by Michael McCormack's charges in Ballybofey in1995. The reality of having to refurbish the assembly line and afford the product a greater lifespan needed to be grasped quite a while ago. It's to the credit of successive county board crews and the think-tank teams inveigled by them that Monaghan appear to be back on track. It's been an uncomfortable few years for Monaghan football. The old guard of the mid-nineties has gone out to pasture with reputations intact. Players like Gerard McGuirk, Edwin Murphy, Frank McEnaney and Stephen McGinnity have departed the high-profile stage allowing for a new brigade of players to be ushered into mainstream inter-county affairs. The ushering in of a whole wave of new blood has been predictably laborious, elongated and unpredictable. In the amateurish world of Gaelic games, there are no contracts and players are allowed to come and go as they wish, that is if they chose to commit themselves to the cause in the first place. Managers have come and gone too over the past five years too - men with different ideas, perceptions and interim goals. The net has been spread wide by Eamon McEneaney and Jack McCarville of late. Few would argue that the best football talent available to them got its head as is the way when a county team is moulded and shaped by varying managers. Even the Monaghan team of 1998 - the year of their All-Ireland 'B' Championship success and of promotion to division one of the NFL - underwent a metamorphosis. For instance of the 18 players who tasted action during Monaghan's 0-11 to 3-13 defeat to Derry at Celtic Park in their opening Ulster Championship encounter that year, only three of the players, Dermot McDermott, Noel Marron and Damien Freeman featured in 2001 in the All-Ireland qualifying game against Armagh. The changing of the guard in Monaghan since 1998 evolved on foot of back-to-back provincial championship defeats to Derry and defeat to Fermanagh (1-10 to 2-12) at Clones in 1999. Victory for the Ernesiders saw manager McEneaney depart, paving the way for Jack McCarville to come into office. The Scotstown clubman changed things around, brought in new faces, saw others take of their leave. Sadly 2000 turned out to be a textbook case of deja vu for Monaghan supporters. Defeat was again suffered to Fermanagh in the preliminary round of the Ulster championship. No promotion, no play-off spot in the league this time though. McCarville's faith in youth hadn't quite paid off. Seasoned players like Peter Duffy, Stephen McGinnity, Joe Coyle, John Conlon and Edwin Murphy were absent. All told, there were only four survivors from the team which had lost out to Fermanagh in Eamon McEneaney's last game in charge 12 months earlier - Glen Murphy, Noel Marron, Damien Freeman and Declan Smyth. McCarville's championship bow saw young guns like Dick Clerkin get the nod at full-forward; Gary McQuaid take up a wing-back berth; Peter Coyle slot in at full-back; Ryan Treacy at midfield; Paul O'Connor at wing-forward and Kieran Tavey at corner-forward. The introduction of the aforementioned helped lower the average age of the players on duty to just 21. The Fermanagh game proved too demanding though for McCarville's rookie county side. Monaghan had a disastrous start to the match, finding themselves 0-0 to 1-4 behind after just 20 minutes. There was too much ground to recover thereafter. Monaghan's division 2B national league campaign saw them miss out on promotion yet show a great deal of promise in clocking up wins over Kildare (away) Carlow (away), Waterford (home) and Tipperary (home). A draw away to Wexford was also a respectable result. All told, Monaghan finished their league campaign with nine points out of a possible fourteen - hardly a morale-damaging conclusion ahead of their Ulster SFC meeting with Fermanagh on June 10th. For the 2001 championship campaign, Jack McCarville and his selectors Raymond Leonard and Peter Kelly trawled the net wide and far as he ran the rule over 40 players before settling on a panel of 24 for the Ulster SFC. The Monaghan team which featured against Fermanagh in the first round of the 2001 Ulster SFC at Brewster Park on June 10th showed eleven changes from the team which lost to Fermanagh in the corresponding tie in 2000 Glen Murphy retained the 'keeper's jersey. Dermot McDermott togged out in his regular full-back berth with wing full-backs Colm Flanagan and Gary McQuaid getting the nod in place of Padraig McKenna and Noel Marron. The changes also saw Truaghs Paraic McKenna, John Paul Mone and Dermot McArdle make up a brand new half-back line with Edwin Murphy, Gerard McGuirk and John Conlon no longer part of the panel. Most eyes were focussed on Jack McCarville's selection of a new midfield pairing in Jason Hughes (Monaghan senior player of the year) and James McElroy. The new partnership took the place of Frank McEnaney and Joe Coyle. As things transpired, two brilliant first half goals by Kieran Tavey and Raymond Ronaghan propelled Monaghan to an impressive 2-10 to 0-14 win. Before a crowd of 14,000, the visitors were a revelation in the first half in particular during which they romped to a 2-3 to 0-1 lead after just 19 minutes. Thereafter the team comfortably held their 2-2 lead right through to the interval. Fermanagh's inevitable attempt at fighting their way back did emerge but with the midfield pairing of Hughes and McElroy dropping back to help the full-back line, there was no way through for Fermanagh as they hunted the goals that could have saved the day for them. In the wake of five successive Ulster SFC first round defeats, the joy of the Monaghan fans on their way out of Brewster Park was wholly understandable as their favourites put back-to-back championship setbacks to Fermanagh behind them in real route one fashion. The Monaghan think-tank's youth policy was immediately declared to be a winning formula. Declan Smyth, one of the few survivors from the 1995 championship win over Donegal was noticeably reserved in his post-match deliberations, claiming that the win over Fermanagh was "only a stepping stone towards an Ulster final." Thanks to the novel All-Ireland qualifying system, the win over Fermanagh guaranteed at least another two championship matches for Monaghan. In the immediate term, only Cavan now stood between Monaghan and a place in the Ulster final. Monaghan were to blow their chance of reaching the decider though - their genuine hopes being sacrificed on the altar of too many missed chances in front of goal, especially in the opening 35 minutes when having enjoyed the bulk of possession and the vast majority of scoring opportunities led by just two points, 0-7 to 0-5, at the interval. Monaghan started the game well and were two point to nil ahead inside the opening two minutes. They finished the first half well too with frees from Kieran Tavey and Declan Smyth and an excellent score from impressive sub. Thomas Freeman giving the would-be losers the edge at the break. The flying Freeman added three more excellent points to his tally in the second half but the Magheracloone player's consistency wasn't matched in many berths elsewhere for Monaghan although Dermot McDermott had an outstanding game on Jason Reilly. Still, Monaghan were still two points clear by the three-quarter mark and looked in pole position to ease their way into the final. Instead, Cavan produced the more telling finish, eventually running out 0-13 to 0-11 winners. Monaghan were later to bow out of the hunt for Sam after coming up against a strong and imposing Armagh side at Clones on July 1st. Armagh's greater experience, guile and physical strength was very obvious over the course of their 2-12 to 0-10 victory. Coming so soon after the team's hugely disappointing defeat to Cavan, victory over the Orchard County was always going to be a lot to ask of the young, aspiring Monaghan players. Goals by John Toal in the seventh minute and Stephen McDonnell in the 50th minute - leaving Monaghan trailing by 0-4 to 2-7 at that juncture - were the body-blows for Monaghan which eventually saw their challenge crumble. Overall though Monaghan made progress in 2001 even if they ought to have made the Ulster final given the window of opportunity which was presented to them after their win over Fermanagh. The team's defeat to Cavan was the crucial game for them in 2001. That day saw rising star Thomas Freeman come on as a sub and notch four great points. It also signalled Noel Marron's swan song - a classic example of out with the old, in with the new. A pointer to the future make-up of the Monaghan senior team? We'll see. Tweet

Most Read Stories