Finlay strikes late blow for Monaghan

EIGHT days after they were originally slated to meet, the top two teams in the league’s second tier finally got to lock horns in Donnycarney. It was well worth the wait.

Some of the football wasn’t exactly out of the top drawer but what the game lacked in quality it made up for with liberal amounts of drama, numerous plot twists and a pinch or two of controversy.

Monaghan manager Seamus McEnaney said afterwards that it had not been a dirty game but referee Syl Doyle still awarded over 50 frees and sent off Dublin’s Mark Vaughan and Bryan Cullen, both for second bookable offences.

Spicy would be the best word to describe it. At one point early in the second half, there were minor skirmishes flaring all over the pitch. Ten players were throwing shapes in a huddle at one end, Vaughan was seeing red at the other and in the middle Monaghan’s Paul McGuigan was being hauled onto a stretcher.

All afternoon, players squared up to each other. Shoulders were thrown with impunity and at times the football threatened to take a back seat to tomfoolery but both managers will still have reasons to view this game with some satisfaction.

For a start, Monaghan earned their share of the spoils despite leaving their A game at home. They scored just once from play and had to reel in a four-point deficit in the closing ten minutes.

Their lifeline came in the form of their defending and their free takers. Neither Tommy Freeman nor Paul Finlay missed a single dead ball all day, while Dublin’s report card was less complimentary in that department with Mark Vaughan, normally so reliable, suffering a case of the yips.

“We knew it was going to come down to the last eight or nine minutes,” said McEnaney. “We talked about it during the week and I am really proud of the lads that they came out of that dogfight with a result.”

Dublin too showed an admirable refusal to accept defeat when it looked to be their likely fate. They played almost the entire second half with only 14 men after Vaughan’s rather harsh dismissal; Cullen followed in injury time.

With half an hour to play, the Leinster champions looked in serious trouble. Vaughan had just walked and Monaghan had tacked on two points to open up a five-point lead. Dublin’s response was to square their shoulders and take the fight to the visitors.

Within six minutes they were level, thanks mainly to Paul Flynn’s goal. With ten minutes to go, they had established their four-point lead with four sublime kicks from Conal Keaney in the space of five minutes doing most of the damage.

It was an impressive response to adversity, even if they undid much of their good work by letting the win slip from their grasp thanks to Finlay’s fifth dead ball three minutes into injury time.

“It took some time to get the breath back,” said Paul Caffrey who had to operate without Alan Brogan and Barry Cahill. “It was a fantastic game of football. Both teams showed great endeavour.

“There were stages in the game where you would have taken the draw but we were looking for the victory towards the end and just couldn’t hold on. Maybe a draw was a fair result.”

McEnaney said that it was far from a perfect performance from his side but that was a sentiment that applied equally to their opponents. Both side’s imperfections were most obvious in the first half.

Dublin dominated possession for long spells of the game but their use of it was poor. Time and again it spilled from a home player’s grasp like a wet bar of soap, while some of their shooting in the opening period was far from satisfactory.

Monaghan’s attacking shortcomings were even more pronounced. The game was five minutes old before they ventured into Dublin territory and on the occasions they did there were far too few bodies there to do real damage.

That said, they reached the break three points to the good thanks to Freeman and Finlay’s dead ball expertise. Monaghan’s only point from play, incidentally, was scored by substitute Stephen Gollogly six minutes after the break.

Scorers: Dublin: C Keaney 0-4 (0-2f, 0-1 ‘45’), P Flynn 1-0, M Vaughan 0-2f, B Brogan 0-2f, D Henry 0-1, J Sherlock 0-1. Monaghan: T Freeman 0-7f, P Finlay 0-5f, S Gollogly 0-1.

DUBLIN: S Cluxton; D Henry, R McConnell, D Murray; P Casey, P Flynn, C Moran; E Fennell, S Ryan; B Cullen, K Bonner, M Vaughan; J Sherlock, C Keaney, B Brogan.

Subs: C Whelan for Bonner 58, B McManamaon for Flynn 66, D Magee for Brogan 70.

MONAGHAN: P McBennett; D Mone, JP Mone, D McArdle; D Freeman, D Hughes, P McGuigan; D Clerkin, E Lennon; C McManus, V Corey, P Finlay; R Woods, R Ronaghan, T Freeman. Subs: S Gollogly for McManus 35, D Morgan for McGuigan 53, B McKenna for Clerkin 53, C Hanratty for Woods 63, N McAdam for Hughes.

Referee: S Doyle (Wexford).