Monaghan edge epic penalty shootout with Armagh to book semi-final spot

Rory Beggan was the hero for the Farney County against their Ulster rivals.

SPOT ON: Monaghan goalkeeper Rory Beggan saves a penalty during the shoot-out. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

Armagh 0-14 Monaghan 0-14 (Monaghan win 9-8 on penalties and after extra-time) 

Not a game that will ever threaten the status of classic but no All-Ireland quarter-final has ever been so closely contested with Monaghan eventually squeaking a place in the last four after extra-time and a 20-kick penalty shootout.

For Armagh it is a case of third time unlucky after shootout defeats to Galway at this same stage last season and to Derry in this summer’s Ulster decider. For Monaghan, it is a second All-Ireland semi-final in five years.

How tight was it?

Neither team led by more than one point at any stage across the 90-plus minutes played. Imagine. Thirteen times they drew level over the course of this thing and the spectre of extra-time, at the very least, felt all but inevitable long before the end.

The winning and losing of it was hard to bear, not least for Armagh’s Callum Cumiskey who saw two of his kicks saved by Rory Beggan and the second of which finally separated these two sides over two-and-a-half hours after the ball had first been thrown-in.

The sight of thousands wearing green and red leaking away from the ground after the day’s first game fed into a slow and steady start as both sides looked to suss the other out and the first half-ended with Armagh up by six points to five.

A most modern of half-time football scores.

It was all very measured, with Monaghan showing that bit more bravery by pushing numbers up and Armagh looking at times to break out from their entrenched defensive positions to hit their Ulster neighbours on the counter.

They never quite managed to make those count, coughing up the ball the first two times and their most promising opportunity ending with a Stefan Campbell shot being blocked by the body of the sprawling Gary Mohan just yards from the Monaghan net.

Half of Armagh’s first-half total came from Rian O’Neill frees, the third of them a superb effort from far and wide under the Hogan Stand, while Monaghan were finding serious purchase down their own left flank but failing to make that seam pay fully.

A game in need of a spark, basically.

It didn’t come. A slow burn, at best, the second-half started out much as the first had rippled along with Armagh fashioning a couple of half-chances for something bigger and better than a point but failing to make them count.

The introduction of Conor McManus shortly after the restart was one belated injection, the evergreen attacker knocking over a massive free with his first touch and playing a part in a score for the excellent Mohan soon after.

If it looked ever so briefly like Monaghan were getting a grip on the game then it wasn’t being reflected on a scoreboard that screamed parity, or in light of Armagh’s ongoing threat from the quick break which, if anything, only increased.

Rory Grugan fisted over when one-on-one with Beggan on the back of one flying visit while the Monaghan goalkeeper spread himself to deny Andrew Murnin with another effort that came from Campbell’s lightning run.

That the game was opening, and hotting, up became clear when Ryan Wylie found himself held out in very similar circumstances at the other end not too long after. A goal at any point would have doubled as a de facto full stop.

Monaghan were down to 14 for the end credits in normal time after Sean Jones walked for a trip on Campbell and the ending was all drama as Armagh probed patiently for an opening as the clock dipped into the red.

When the big push came, the ball found Conor Turbitt in Monaghan’s ‘D’ and the hefty shoulder he shipped from Mohan was deemed legal by referee Conor Lane who stopped the game when the Armagh man stayed down and then threw the ball in.

It was a big call at that time and in that place but replays suggested it was the right one, whatever about the decision to stop things immediately after. Bottom line: Monaghan survived and so extra-time loomed.

Armagh fired off a point straight from the throw-in but, while Monaghan tried to kill time while a man down with endless lateral passes, there were two chances spurned at the other end with Rory Grugan and Shane McPartlan kicking bad wides.

The thought struck then that a team only gets so many chances. All the more so when McManus kicked over another free to leave the teams – predictably enough – level at the second interval and with no sign of either breaking for the hills.

If the quality wasn’t peaking then the drama was.

Michael Bannigan took a punt at the Armagh posts at the start of the second extra period that was put to a HawyEye system that hummed and hawed and eventually returned a non-verdict of ‘data unavailable’. Of all the times… The stakes were sky high now. Every pass was cushioned with care and a dollop of fear lest it tilt the scales irrevocably in the wrong direction and Armagh seemed to have won it when O’Neill clipped over a beaut from near the ‘45’ with time almost up.

ALL IN: Tempers flare between the two teams as the whistle blows at the end of normal time. Picture: INPHO/Ben Brady

Not so fast. The fourth official signalled an extra three minutes to come and, with more stoppages littering the last lap, there were over six ticked off when McManus sent over the last equaliser. Penalties it would be.

And heartbreak for one of them.

Scorers for Armagh: R O’Neill (0-6, 0-4 frees, 0-1 ‘45’); A Forker (0-3); A Murnin (0-2, 0-1 mark); R Grugan (0-2, 0-1 free); R McQuillan (0-1).

Scorers for Monaghan: McManus (0-4, 0-3 frees); G Mohan and C McCarthy (both 0-3); C J McCarron (0-2, 0-1 free); M Bannigan (0-2).

Armagh: E Rafferty; P Burns, A McKay, A Forker; C O’Neill, G McCabe, J Og Burns; R O’Neill, B Crealey; C Mackin, S Campbell, J McElroy; R Grugan, A Murnin, J Duffy.

Subs: C Turbitt for Crealey (45); C Cumiskey for McCabe (51); J Hall for Duffy (54); R McQuillan for Hall (65); S McPartlan for McElroy (69); B McCambridge for Forker (75); J Kieran for Burns (80); O Conaty for Campbell (90).

Monaghan: R Beggan; K Lavelle, K Duffy, R Wylie; K O’Connell, C Boyle, C McCarthy; G Mohan, D Hughes; S O’Hanlon, M Bannigan, R McAnespie; J McCarron, K Gallagher, D Ward.

Subs: C McManus for Gallagher (40); R O’Toole for Lavelle (53); S Jones for McCarron (56); S Carey for McAnespie (61): K Hughes for Ward (68); C Lennon for Boyle (80); J McCarron for O’Connell (85); K O’Connell for O’Hanlon (89).

Referee: C Lane (Cork).