THE FIRST THING anyone would want to know of Monaghan manager Vinny Corey, is if his veterans will once again put their shoulder to the wheel in 2024.
From the lads in their mid-30s, Karl O’Connell is in the conversation for an All-Star. Darren Hughes went through three jersies sweating blood for the cause, and Conor McManus was their main scoring threat in the defeat to Dublin.
Corey hopes to see them all back.
“I don’t see why not, you’ve seen there, younger boys coming off tonight, but the older boys weren’t coming off at all,” he said.
“Darren Hughes, Karl O’Connell, Conor McManus played the 70 minutes, plus.. I think there’s more tank in them boys absolutely, it will be completely there decision, but we will not be dragging them away, that’s for sure.”
Being 0-15 to 0-13 down in the 66th minute would have counted as going to plan for Monaghan, but when they pushed the clutch in, they found they were in top gear. Dublin had one more to go.
Which flies in the face of how they had been performing.
“We have finished games strong and we knew if we got down the field one more time we’d make it a one point game going down the stretch.
“It was very much on. It’s disappointing. We were happy enough with the way it was going but Dublin seemed to turn the screw from that point on, just in the last seven or eight minutes.”
1-17 to 0-13 is a ridiculously unfair scoreline, giving how the game had worked out. But Dublin have spent some time in this crucible that they hold an advantage over every other team.
“I think probably a bit more athleticism throughout and especially on the field at that final point. We were maybe, some key men were starting to get tired and some key men had come off and Dublin were able to keep that and maybe that’s where it really shows in those last number of minutes,” explained Corey.
“We’ve seen that from Dublin before where you think you are going well and they can punish you in those last few minutes once you tire, once you fatigue a wee bit, so I think that was partly to do with it.”
So where does this season sit in his reckoning? An All-Ireland semi-final is a significant year for Monaghan football all the same.
“We probably targeted it in the first meeting of the year. We assessed it and said there’s probably a good chance we would be in the All-Ireland semi-final. Just with the new structure there,” he explains.
“You would be very unlucky to finish bottom of that group and be out of it. And once you are in it and building up a bit of momentum, you would have a good chance.
“One measure of your year is silverware. We don’t have that. Obviously another is how far you go in the championship. We made the last four.”
He added, “Plus, I suppose, from a player’s point of view, in the old system it was a long time, depending on how your year went, it could take maybe three years to get players up to eight championship games’ experience.
“So for some of our players to play, I mean that was our eighth championship game. It’s bound to prompt them a wee bit. Some players who are a young age have experience now of playing an All-Ireland semi-final that the older boys didn’t have when they were the same vintage.
“There’s positives there if you build on it. There’s no silverware, but it wasn’t too bad of a year.”
