WITH ONLY TWO championship football matches played over the weekend, the only thing that people can manage to talk about was the ending of Monaghan’s ransacking of Healy Park and Tyrone.
When we say talk about, the conversations tend to begin and end with the clutch play. Kieran Duffy’s ball over the top of Niall Sludden’s head, perfectly into the path of young Ryan O’Toole with Monaghan a point down.
He’s 23, but the Scotstown lad looks a lot younger. As he collected the ball, the smart money was on a fisted point, and extra-time.
He didn’t even take a solo or a hop out of it. Just laced it with just enough outside of the boot, slightly right of the laces, to drill the flight. Goalkeeper Niall Morgan seemed to be caught by surprise, as did Cormac Munroe who made a lunge with his feet.
When the ball hit the net, there were precisely 22 seconds left in the time added on. Niall Cullen might have been generous in allowing Tyrone a few more plays, but the two-point margin made all the difference.
And seeing as it’s all anyone can talk about, well then we are duty bound to ask O’Toole’s Monaghan team mates about it.
“I don’t know what I wanted,” says Ryan Wylie as to whether he wanted O’Toole to fist over or go for broke.
“I was on the ball a couple of plays before that and all I was thinking was just keeping my legs going. Ah here, Ryan’s come into the scene this year, he’s backed himself every game, no different there now.
“I suppose it’s the great thing about youth, you’ve no fear and he’s just right. There’s no point being left wondering, everyone’s told to bury them low, you’ll always have a chance, and that’s what he did. Fair play to him.”
The question is worthless now, but with eight Monaghan players over the age of 30 seeing game time here (for the record, Tyrone had only five eligible for the club under v over 30’s Christmas charity match at their clubs), would they have been relishing another 20-odd minutes of football?
“I don’t think I’d have been fit for much in extra-time, but you always pull something out of the bag. It’s great to get it done and over in 70 minutes, now we can look forward to two weeks preparation,” says Wylie.
Winning the games, looking ahead to the next one. That’s what championship is, and a small reminder came after the game when Monaghan manager Vinny Corey said, “Once you put the word championship in front of something, it means something.”
Wylie feels the same. There are those who still believe Tyrone might fare better in the All-Ireland championship than Monaghan, but you could take a guess at what group of players are feeling better about themselves right now.
“For us in Ulster, we haven’t really done anything in the province the last couple of years, and at the end of day there’s some silverware there to be got,” said Wylie.
“Throughout the country everyone’s talking about the Ulster championship always having that competitive edge, I don’t think that’s ever really going to change with the calibre of teams you have.
“There’s no easy game, we had Tyrone there today, Derry the next day, you can’t really get much tougher than that.”
And the famous never-say-die Monaghan attitude was never better displayed.
“Ah yeah, yous are trying to bury us this last couple of years. There’s no point going out and not giving it your all, that’s what you train hard for, and it’s the mentality of a lot of players. You can even see in training, you don’t want to be losing.”
Last year, Derry won the same pairing in the Ulster semi-final, 3-12 to 0-17. In all likelihood, it will be fixed for Omagh again.
As much as teams insist previous meetings have no bearing on the next game, it will be mentioned at length within the dressing room walls at their Cloghan training base over the next fortnight.
“Any defeat, it’s difficult. We had a bit of a wait then after so it’s probably difficult when you’re waiting so long to get back into another game,” adds Wylie.
“We would’ve been pushing towards that Derry game last year, they came out on top and deservedly so. You saw the class they have when they went on to win Ulster, they were unlucky not to get into an All-Ireland final.
“We’ll give it our all now the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be another tough battle but we’re looking forward to it.”
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