All-Ireland SFC group four: Meath 1-14 Monaghan 1-17
WHEN you haven’t won a game for 141 days, you’d be forgiven for not being all that bothered about how much you win by.
Monaghan led Meath by 1-16 to 1-9 just as Tadhg Morley was scoring Kerry’s second goal against Louth, pushing the Kingdom twelve points clear.
Vinny Corey’s side went into the game needing an unlikely 20-point swing in score difference to finish second in the group and give themselves an easier draw at home.
With just under ten minutes to play, the swing was 19. They could almost reach out and touch it.
So in some deep recess of their minds post-match there was naturally a twinge of disappointment given that it fell away on their own terms, letting their own nine-point gap be cut to three, but it was buried too deep to be worrying about it.
Barry McBennett’s goal had opened the scoreboard chasm to its widest.
He had come on after two minutes when Joel Wilson took a nasty cut to the back of the head and within seconds, McBennett had created a turnover and followed up to point.
Wilson was bandaged up and brought back on but McBennett was in again for him before the half-hour and went on to produce an inspired display, finishing with 1-2.
When Monaghan had taken a tanking in Killarney, Vinny Corey called on his vast reserves of experience and knowing what it feels like as a player to be stuck in that rut.
In contrast to what almost any other manager at this stage of the championship would do, he released the players to their clubs in the middle of the group stage.
McBennett had a stormer for Doohamlet and came back to Cloghan bouncing.
“I think it was important [to let them play for their clubs], especially after the Kerry game, it was such a bad first-half performance, sometimes the more you force it, the worse it gets,” said Corey.
“Sometimes just get them back to basics, going back to the club and seeing what you get out of that. We did it after that, we drew against Louth and won today.
“I think it’s important that you sometimes step out of the thing a wee bit and give them a wee bit of breathing space and then they pull back in, and some of them will come back in with massive confidence after a big club performance.
“You have to take a gamble on that and we did. He’s one of the fellas it worked with, he went out with his club and had a few massive games, he got in today and backed it up.”
For the vast majority of the game, they didn’t look like a team that hadn’t won since January 27.
They were fresh and lively and too good for Meath. On the balance of play, Monaghan should have won by far more than they did.
But their fragility was evident too. After a fine start, Jason Irwin gave the ball away under no pressure and with Rory Beggan back-pedalling, Matthew Costello kept his head and turned away the lob option to feed Cathal Hickey for the finish instead.
It left Colm O’Rourke’s team 1-3 to 0-5 ahead and for the next five minutes, there were more opportunities for similar breaks.
Adam O’Neill got right in behind but the pass wasn’t quite right, and when he had to slow up, Ryan McAnespie made sure he fouled him with a push. It’s the kind of foul the black card should punish but the rule has a loophole the size of Cavan town.
Monaghan steadied and got their noses back in front right on half-time with the excellent Killian Lavelle coming forward to score. He won his battle with Matthew Costello hands down and Ryan Wylie was very good on Jordan Morris too, while Irwin defended well against Eoghan Frayne.
Ronan Ryan had Jack McCarron well wrapped up at the other end but for too long, Meath didn’t pick up Micheal Bannigan properly. He dictated a lot of their good first half, probing in the spaces and punishing the Royals for dropping Darragh Campion off.
The third quarter was again tidy from the hosts, hitting eight of the first ten scores to move into a position where comfort began to turn to optimism as Louth’s defeat got heavier by the minute.
Corey wasn’t interested in a running commentary either in his ear or his players’. They wouldn’t have realised on the field how close they were at a stage.
They might have had next weekend off followed by a game in Clones against one of Derry, Roscommon or Cork.
Instead they’re out again in possibly six days away to one of Galway, Mayo or Tyrone.
“We just wanted to win the game, we would have taken anything,” said Corey, unsurprisingly.
“I told the boys I wasn’t disappointed that we didn’t get the scores for score difference, I just thought we left easy scores behind us that could have finished that game off easier.
“We have to look at that but you can’t be too hard on the boys, it’s been a long spell without winning a match.”
Colm O’Rourke, who said he intends to ask his county board to give him another three years and turn it into a five-year project in total, watched his side finish strongly and cut the gap right back to two before Conor McManus’ late free ended their year.
They aren’t at that level but their manager intends to stay trying to get them there.
Monaghan can breathe until 8.30am tomorrow morning, at which point they might begin to regret letting second place slip by.
MATCH STATS
Meath: B Hogan (0-1 45); D Keogan, R Ryan, A O’Neill; C Caulfield, D Campion, S Coffey; C Hickey (1-0), C Gray; B O’Halloran, C O’Sullivan (0-1), S Ryan; J Morris, M Costello (0-4, 0-3 frees), E Frayne (0-3, 0-2 frees)
Subs: C McBride for S Ryan (HT), R Kinsella for O’Sullivan (HT), R Jones (0-2) for Gray (49), J Conlon (0-2) for O’Halloran (55), D McGowan for Hickey (62)
Monaghan: R Beggan; R Wylie, K Lavelle (0-1), J Irwin (0-1); R McAnespie, R O’Toole, C McCarthy (0-2); G Mohan, J Wilson; S O’Hanlon (0-2), M Bannigan (0-3, 0-2 frees), M Hamill; C McNulty, J McCarron (0-4 frees), A Woods (0-1)
Subs: T McPhillips for O’Toole (50), D Garland for C McNulty (55), C McManus for McCarron (59), M McCarville for Hamill (67), S Mooney for Woods (70)
Blood sub: B McBennett (1-2) for Wilson (2-6; 29-FT)
Referee: J McQuillan (Cavan)