‘Our season starts now’

FOR a good hour afterwards, a swarm of Monaghan folk congregated around the tunnel of the ground stand at Clones dissecting the game and trying to square the feelings of pride and loss welling up in their throats.

The former emotion had clearly won the battle of wills with one who approached a member of the Monaghan backroom staff with a pat on the shoulder and the words ‘hard luck, good show’.

The response — ‘f*** good show’ — might have been bereft of subtlety but it corresponded perfectly with manager Seamus McEnaney who admitted this was a game and a title that got away from them.

“Beaten by two points in an Ulster final with nine wides kicked? It is (a missed chance), yes. It took us 19 years to get here but maybe we are going to have to lose one before we win one.”

“Tyrone switched players about the place and we found it hard to settle. We were very happy at half-time. All we wanted at that stage was to be in the game and we were only four points down. We weren’t duly annoyed.”

The third quarter undid much of their good work prior to the interval but when they finally decided to lob some missiles down on the head of Vinny Corey, they found the collateral damage in Tyrone’s rearguard to be beyond their wildest dreams.

Jack O’Connor might have played with the thought of launching Kieran Donaghy into the small square for months before taking the plunge last summer but McEnaney’s redeployment of his big target man was a more spur of the moment situation.

“I made the decision on the way into the dressing room at half-time. He’s (Vinny) a fantastic player and a leader who can do a job anywhere on the field. He was exceptionally good.”

He was that and when Monaghan purge the last of the disappointment from their systems they will replenish themselves with all of the positives from this occasion, not least their refusal to know when they are beaten.

“We talked in the circle after the game about how proud we are that we emptied the tank. Listen, the real championship begins now. We’ll be back into training Tuesday night. We’ll be giving this one hell of a lash.”