Football

Monaghan debutants impress Darren Hughes despite Mayo loss

Monaghan's Darren Hughes was happy with the performances of four League debutants for his county against Mayo.
Monaghan's Darren Hughes was happy with the performances of four League debutants for his county against Mayo. Monaghan's Darren Hughes was happy with the performances of four League debutants for his county against Mayo.

MONAGHAN may have finished three men down in losing to Mayo but Darren Hughes was impressed with the four players who stepped up to this level.

The Scotstown clubman was understandably disappointed to be beaten by an injury time point from Paddy Durcan in Clones in their Division One opener.

Home hopes weren’t helped by the late dismissals of defenders Ryan Wylie and Barry Kerr, with Dermot Malone black-carded very near the end, leaving Monaghan with only a dozen players on the pitch.

However, Hughes found positives in the performances of the newcomers in an inexperienced side, namely Kerr, Niall Kearns, Paraic McGuirk, and David Garland:

“That’s one side of it, I suppose – we had four debutants there, but I thought they all stepped up to the mark brilliantly.

“That’s something we needed to look at, to bring more boys into the panel. That’s four more and there’s plenty more in there, there’ll be more debutants during the League…

“In previous years we felt we weren’t bringing enough through. Davy, Paraic, and Barry are fresh into the squad this year; Niall was here last year and served his apprenticeship.

“It’s great to see him stepping up to the plate, he had a dominant display at midfield there, kicked two points. He’s another name to add to the list, another headache for Malachy [O’Rourke] with team selections.”

Hughes revealed there was confusion ever the reason for the first red card, for Wylie, in the 69th minute, after a multi-player scramble for the ball left Aidan O’Shea hurt.

“Ryan doesn’t really know what it was for and I happened to be talking to Aidan O’Shea and he didn’t know what it was for either.

“Obviously the umpire has seen something – I don’t know, I was down the other end of the field. Neither player involved was 100 per cent sure what he was given a straight red for.”

Hughes had no complaints about Kerr going two minutes later for a second yellow card, the Cremartin player catching Mayo midfielder Jason Gibbons in the face, although he did offer a plea in mitigation:

“Second yellow – he went to push him in the chest and caught him in the face, got a yellow card, so we just have to suck that up and get on with it.”

Monaghan also had two men sent off against Mayo in a League defeat three seasons ago, including Wylie, as Hughes ruefully remembered:

“It seems to be against Mayo in previous years that these discipline problems have come up but these things can happen when a game is in the melting pot.”

The red cards had less of an influence this time as they came so late in the game, although Hughes still felt Monaghan had some cause for complaint – but also had to ship some blame themselves:

“On quick reflection we felt we probably could have had a free in the last minute but we know we missed a lot [of chances] and made a lot of mistakes in the second half.

“We were confident coming into this game that we had a team and squad strong enough to do the job and that’s what’s disappointing, that we didn’t get anything out of the game.

“We were 12-9 down at one stage and got it back to 12 all and sorta felt we could get a push on at the last. We knew the game would be in the melting pot with five or 10 [minutes] to go and that’s where we wanted to be.

“It’s disappointing not to get over the line with at least a point.”

This was a rare defeat in a League opener in recent times for Monaghan, but Hughes is well aware how tough the top flight is:

“Here, we’re in Division One, it’s where we want to be but nothing is a given any weekend you go out. We’ll get back to the training ground on Tuesday night, look at a few mistakes we made and try to eradicate them for next week.

“It’s not going to set us back too badly, hopefully. Obviously we’ll be looking for two points [in Kildare] but there’s nothing simple in Division One; every day you go out is going to be a tight game”.