by John Graham

ALL IRELAND SENIOR FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP QUARTER FINAL.
Tyrone 0-14
Monaghan 0-12

Monaghan have experienced the highs and lows of the fortunes of sport in just two weeks coming from the dizzy heights of celebrating an Ulster championship after a lapse of 25 years to plumbing the depths of bitter disappointment, gut wrenching disenchantment and even despair as they failed to progress past the quarter-final stage at All Ireland level for the second time as the Tyrone hoodoo continued in Croke Park on Saturday evening last, sending Monaghan crashing out of at the end of a, tough, hard-hitting, dramatic and at times controversial contest. This was a game that produced some fine passages of play, excellent scores, a number of good, influential individual performances on both sides but was then married to an extent by a degree of cynicism and the at times controversial refereeing of Meath official, Cormac Reilly, and not for the first time in games involving Monaghan. It was a game too that saw both sides finish with 14 players, Tyrone numerically reduced with the dismissal of Martin Penrose at the start of the second-half and he was soon followed by Kieran Hughes on a second yellow card. Things looked promising for Monaghan early on as they were able to contain the Tyrone threat and limit the influence of Sean Cavanagh in particular but Tyrone had a couple of other alternatives in their armoury with Joe McMahon and Conor Clarke in particular offering alternatives. Tyrone's resurgence too was helped with a very harsh yellow card to Darren Hughes for an alleged foul on Sean Cavanagh who looked to have dived after Darren Hughes had disposed him, and the sanction did adversely affect Hughes for a time which helped Tyrone to recover their composure and by the 26th minute they had taken the lead for the first time in the match. Tyrone went in ahead at half-time by two points but before the ball was thrown in for the second half they were reduced numerically with the dismissal of Martin Penrose and it did become more a war of attrition in the second period with the Meath official adding fuel to the fire on occasions with some very questionable decisions while at other times not making the required decision at all. That said though mistakes were made that also contributed to Monaghan's defeat with players taking the wrong option at times and when chances are limited, as they were in this contest, that can be fatal.
Teams and Scorers: Tyrone: Pascal McConnell, Dermot Carlin, Conor Clarke 0-1, Cathal McCarron, Ciaran McGinley 0-1, Peter Harte 0-1, Conor Gormley, Colm Kavanagh, Sean Cavanagh 0-5 (2f), Mark Donnelly, Matthew Donnelly 0-1, Joe McMahon 0-2, Darren McCurry 0-2 (2f), Stephen O'Neill, Martin Penrose. Subs: Paddy McNiece for J McMahon, Aidan Cassidy for D McCurry, Ronan McNabb for P McNiece, Ronan O'Neill 0-1 for S O'Neill, Plunkett Kane for Mark Donnelly.
Monaghan: Rory Beggan, Kieran Duffy, Drew Wylie, Colin Walshe, Vincent Corey, Neil McAdam, Dessie Mone, Owen Lennon, Darren Hughes, Paul Finlay 0-2 (2f), Stephen Gollogly 0-1, Dermot Malone, Padraig Donaghy, Kieran Hughes 0-1, Conor McManus 0-6 (4f). Subs: Dick Clerkin 0-1 for D Malone, Christopher McGuinness 0-1 for P Donaghy, Tomas Freeman for P Finlay, Jack McCarron for C Walshe. Referee: Cormac Reilly (Meath).

MONAGHAN'S Darren Hughes.
"It is bitterly disappointing but then I suppose Tyrone came here expecting to get over the line as well. I'm disappointed also for my brother Kieran but he will look back on it and he'll be disappointed himself so we'll just leave it at that. It has been a great season but it is gut wrenching today to go out like this because we had serious belief coming here today that we would win it. We were on a high coming into this game today so it is just very disappointing now that we couldn't push on because I felt we were in a great position to push on at a certain stage. We had the chances there and we got a bit of a boost at the start of the second-half when Martin Penrose was sent off and with the extra man we got a bit of a foothold but then Kieran was sent off and that let them back into it a bit.

MONAGHAN MANAGER Malachy O'Rourke.
"It is very disappointing and I feel very sorry for the lads and there were certain things that happened there today which have no place in the game. Is that what people want, that when players are going through they are just pulled down like that there today, it's hard to know but look, there will be a big debate on that one but that is probably for another day. People call it a professional foul but we do not have that in the GAA and there will be plenty of people to debate that one, but you have to understand that it's bitterly disappointing because these fellows have put in a serious effort all year. We came down here today and we felt we would win the game to be honest about it and we are just bitterly disappointed that we didn't. There are a lot of things we could talk about and maybe in the latter stages Monaghan didn't capitalise on chances with players taking the wrong option going through when maybe they could have laid the ball off to better effect and there were times when we didn't use the ball well particularly in the latter stages. Tweet

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