O’Rourke laments careless errors which proved so costly

The first of the All-Ireland quarter-finals was a game of choices and, while Sean Cavanagh’s decision to haul Conor McManus down midway through the second half stands out, some of Monaghan’s were just as damaging.

As time ebbed away and Tyrone clung to a narrow lead, the Ulster champions began to make matters harder for themselves. Dick Clerkin picked one straight off the ground, Stephen Gollogly hit an awful ball that set up a Tyrone pointed free and Vincent Corey kicked a free out over the sideline.

Each one was a blow Monaghan could ill afford and, though Malachy O’Rourke refused to apportion blame towards his players, he admitted that their increasing carelessness in possession cost them. Whether it was the effects of their Ulster final win or its delirious aftermath, we will never know.

“I felt with 10 minutes to go, when it was 10 each, I felt we were in a great position and we could have kicked on,” said O’Rourke, at the end of a first year in charge which also secured promotion back to Division Two of the Allianz League. “I’m just bitterly disappointed that we didn’t.”

He added: “We won the Ulster title and maybe people thought that that was enough for us this year but those group of players were really, really determined to come down and put in a big performance, and hopefully that would be enough to get us through to an All-Ireland semi-final. Unfortunately it wasn’t and we just have to accept it.”

O’Rourke went back further, to the dawn of the second quarter when Monaghan held a four points to one lead. It was remoulded into a two-point deficit come a half-time break dominated by the trail of badness that followed the sides down the tunnel and led to Martin Penrose’s dismissal on the restart. Mickey Harte confirmed later that they had an inkling that something was afoot and that they may have to make allowances for a missing player but O’Rourke was oblivious to the card that was about to be produced.

“No indication whatsoever,” he said. “We had to change our formation a wee bit, change players around but we had no indication that was going to happen, no.”

In the event, Monaghan used Kieran Duffy as spare defender and, in that, the pattern of the game didn’t change much in that Tyrone were still sourcing most of their scores from deep.

O’Rourke admitted as much afterwards and so too did Cavanagh who was the chief source of ire for the Ulster champion. After Cavanagh’s rugby tackle on McManus after 48 minutes, O’Rourke was reluctant to debate whether a ‘professional’ foul would be a worthwhile introduction to the GAA lest his words take away from Tyrone’s win. But his reply when asked would he want one of his men to make such a challenge was illuminating. “That’s a hard question for me to sit here and deny. But is that what you want, when players are going through, they are pulled down, just like that? It’s hard to know. People can debate that, it’s for another day.”