Coyle shows his class at Clones

MONAGHAN haven’t been responsible for a scene like it in Clones for over a decade.

The county accustomed to seeing the northern big guns coming to its backyard for the big provincial days finally has one of its own to savour.

The man responsible for it stands amid the ecstatic faces of his players. Colm Coyle, the former Boylan stalwart, has just master-minded Monaghan’s first success in Ulster in eight years.

Against the All-Ireland champions of all teams.

The emotion has been a long time bottled up. It poured out yesterday in each and every one of Coyle’s players. Sean Boylan has said that Coyle has one of the best football brains of his Royal troop. Yesterday he proved it.

“There will be a lot of boys who will have made a bit of money out of this down in Meath,” said Coyle, “but it was a very satisfying victory, especially when we were getting written off.”

Coyle never had any doubts that his team would pull through, even after Damien Freeman was harshly shown the line mid-way through the second half:

“It was a tremendous performance, we recovered well from the blow of having Damien sent off. But we had to dig deep after that, and everyone did. We had covered every possible scenario going into this, and we covered the 14-man thing.

“I have been with these lads for six months and I expected a lot from them. We have been ranked as 30 in the country, but I knew we are not as bad as people have made out.

“We have been waiting six months to prepare for this game, hiding in the long grass, while Armagh were playing the league semi-final. This was the only game we were thinking about.”

Certain to be singled out among the amazing bunch of lads is Paul Finlay.

The supreme marksmanship of the U-21 star was the difference as the rain pelted down. After his team were reduced to 14 men, Finlay was Monaghan’s sole scorer, nailing their last five scores.

“There was a lot of pride in this performance and we put something back into Monaghan football with it,” said Finlay.

“Days like this aren’t about individuals, it is all about the team. Right from the full-back line, everyone worked like dogs. And that was the platform for this victory.”

Joe Kernan has the resigned look of somebody who has seen it all before.

As manager of Crossmaglen, he saw his team falter at the first hurdle and come back from it.

Nobody is doubting they will rebound from this:

“Well, we will pick ourselves up because we have to. I said all week we were taking the challenge of Monaghan seriously and that hunger would always be a factor.

"And hunger was definitely a factor out there. We just have to look at the long road ahead.”

That road is on the championship’s secondary route, but, despite their drab display yesterday, Coyle thinks that everyone will want to avoid the All-Ireland champions.

“Armagh were missing a few players, they had some injuries, but this won’t be the end of them. Nobody would like to meet them somewhere down the line.”

Dermot Duffy was part of the Castleblaney team which beat Crossmaglen, when they were defending All-Ireland champions, in Ulster a few years ago.

Yesterday, Duffy rekindled the spirit Castleblaney showed that day and gave a captain’s performance, driving his team from the half-back line.