O’Rourke: Strong start and self-belief key to stopping champions

Victorious Monaghan manager Malachy O’Rourke admitted he and his management team had studied Donegal forensically prior to yesterday’s Ulster final.

As soon as they had beaten Cavan in the semi-final, they had their match-ups organised for the game and they had zoned in on depriving the provincial and All-Ireland champions the strong opening they craved.

“We felt early on Donegal, I suppose like in the All-Ireland final (last year), they might have put in high ball in and try to blitz us early so we just wanted to make sure we didn’t let them get a start on us.

“We were keen to get a start so that they would have to chase the game. It worked for us and I’ve nothing but admiration for Jimmy McGuinness and Rory Gallagher and what they’ve done for the team. It was our day today.”

Few outside the Monaghan camp saw this coming and O’Rourke could appreciate that outlook even though it acted as a motivational tool.

“You’re bound to get a bit of energy out of that but we could understand why it was because Donegal have been brilliant in the Championship over the last number of years and we didn’t play all that well.

“But I knew there was a big performance in the boys and I told them that. People were judging us on the performances against Antrim and Cavan and we weren’t judging ourselves on those performances. We knew there was more to come and luckily enough that’s what happened today.”

O’Rourke saw how “nice and relaxed” his players were during the week and that “they knew exactly what they had to do”.

He never read into the idea Donegal were unbeatable in Ulster. “Don’t get me wrong, Donegal have been a superb team and their system is great but we just felt if we got our performance right we could test Donegal.

“We said all along we would be competitive and the boys had beaten Donegal before. It was a different Donegal team but there was great belief there.

“A lot of small things have to come together and the boys had to be mentally tough. When Donegal came back we had to keep our composure and not do anything silly. We had to be disciplined.”

They picked up just two yellow cards in the game, the second for substitute for Dick Clerkin who was one of the veterans who had suffered umpteen Ulster woes.

“An awful lot of them boys have given an awful lot to football and that was one of the things... Donegal wanted to come here and win three-in-a-row but the lads there have put so much into football and made so many sacrifices and hadn’t got any silverware so it was a big motivating factor and it was a big chance and they didn’t want to let it up too easy.”