1. Memories of Ulster semi-finals against Cavan
“I do vaguely remember the 1995 game. I remember 2001 better, really. I was 15 then. I just remember a big derby game and a big crowd.
“It was wet and miserable and I just remember the disappointment of losing. You never liked losing to Cavan and you knew that from a young age.”
2. New Monaghan manager Malachy O’Rourke and trainer Ryan Porter
“I didn’t know Malahcyu personally but I knew what he had done. He was involved with Latton the year they beat us (Scotstown) in the club final. He turned us over with Fermanagh in Brewster Park when we probably went down too confident that day so his track record spoke for itself.
“I wouldn’t have a bad word to say abut Ryan. He freshened the whole thing up, he had new ideas every night. There is a core group of good coaches in Tyrone that are top quality and who bring a lot to the table. Ryan is the same.
INPHO/Morgan Treacy
3. Suffering a freak leg injury in 2012
“I suffered dead legs in two club games inside eight days. I tried to shake it off with the usual routine like ice baths but I was only getting 90 degree stretch on it at best. I went to a specialist in Dublin to look at it and they put a three inch needle into it to try and drain fluid out of it.
“Nothing would come out of it so they said it had calcified. There is nothing you can do for five weeks, whatever you work at don’t do it and as little impact on that leg as possible. I could do upper body exercise.
“I was still trying to train with the boys but I hated it. You stand at training in the huddle sand try to say your bit but as the weeks went on you felt less important.”
4. Playing in goal for Monaghan against Armagh in 2010
“I knew on the Friday night (he would be in goal). Banty didn’t know I knew that but I had a fair idea. At this stage Shane Duffy wasn’t ruled out and had a fitness test on the Saturday night but I had an idea on the Friday night that he wasn’t going to make it.
“We had no keeper one night at training I don’t know what happened and they said ‘Hughesie stand in the nets there’. I never pulled off saves like it in my life.
“I played a bit of junior soccer in the off season but they knew I had done goals for the county minor team. I would be fairly comfortable kicking off the ground anyway so the tee made it an added advantage. There was craic in the media afterwards.”
INPHO/Presseye/William Cherry
5. Working in farming and internet marketing
“I think it’s great because I am my own boss in a sense. I still have Daddy at home and we work between each other. I’m more flexible and if I had a 9-6 job, I couldn’t listen to some man telling me what to do or looking over my shoulder at a computer. It’ great being a farmer and being able to play football. It’s dairy we have 80 cows.
“I studied business studies in Jordanstown as well. I started a new marketing company myself advertising for local Monaghan companies and that to do a search engine keeping companies high up in Google. The profile of a county footballer helps getting initial contacts and appointments thankfully.”
6. The disappointment of league relegations
“Boys put in a lot of hard work under Seamus (McEnaney) to get up to Division 1. It was six or seven years of hard work to get up there. The year we did get relegated it was a serious hit to the panel.
“Young boys coming in two years ago into Division 1 thought this was great, the next thing it was Division 2 and the next thing, Division 3. Ultimately it was disappointment that drove us on because Division 3 wasn’t somewhere we wanted to be.
“We thought we were better than that but it was our own fault we were there, we didn’t perform and we had to get ourselves out of it.”
