Allianz Football League Division One: Monaghan v Roscommon (Sunday, 2.30pm, Clones, live on TG4 App, deferred TV coverage)
LEAGUE tables tend to be very straightforward. No messing. Pure truth.
Roscommon are top because they’ve won three from three, beating Tyrone, Galway and Armagh.
The position they find themselves in is more remarkable given that Davy Burke wasn’t the name on anyone’s lips for the job when it was vacated by Anthony Cunningham.
It took twelve weeks to name a successor, with Burke and coach Mark McHugh installed on October 26 last year.
Four months to the date later, they travel to Clones. If you’d put a question to every pundit in Ireland before the league started, this would have been very firmly in the ‘relegation four-pointer’ category.
It remains that type of game for Monaghan but the danger for them now is that Roscommon are free of any pressure. They’re safe barring absolute freak results.
In the aftermath of victory over Armagh last week, the dreamers crept out from behind the bushes. Fans were talking of whether Croke Park might double up a potential league final with Mayo, given the two would be set to meet again in championship a week later.
That’s a long way off. But what they do have is that great immeasurable that some would have you believe doesn’t actually exist: momentum.
They’ve found a goalkeeper in Conor Carroll. Brian Stack moving out to centre-half, Conor Daly attacking endlessly from full-back, Tadhg O’Rourke back in midfield, Ben O’Carroll looking spritely up front – there are very definable elements of why they’ve won three from three.
Allianz Football League fixtures, results and tables
But the margins are very fine. If Darren McCurry doesn’t fumble the ball when he’s clean through on the opening day, Tyrone probably win that game.
If Martin McNally gives Jack Glynn the free, Galway probably win. He doesn’t, Roscommon break and Richard Hughes kicks a 75th minute winner at the other end instead.
If Jason Duffy passes to Andy Murnin rather than shooting himself or even if Stefan Campbell and Rian O’Neill don’t contrive to botch a great chance, Armagh would have won in the Hyde too.
You make your own luck. Roscommon have played some great stuff and they’ve dug in to games when they had to. In all three, there were times when they looked beaten and yet they’ve six points. There is something about them.
But Monaghan in Clones is a serious proposition. Since promotion at the end of 2014, they’ve lost just five times at home, and two of those were in the first four Division One games they played in St Tiernach’s Park.
Since those heavy defeats by Dublin and Kerry, they’ve lost to Dublin by a goal (2017), Mayo by a point (2018) and the latter again by two points last year, needing a Paddy Durcan goal-line clearance with the very last play of the game to deny Ryan McAnespie.
He has since departed and so too has Niall Kearns. Those losses will hurt Monaghan in 2023.
There’s a school of thought developing that their fiercely protective stance towards Division One football has maybe hurt their summers of late. Big March and April results have facilitated pitch invasions but it is now eight years since the second of their two Ulster titles in three years.
Vinny Corey has been trying to find players, as he’s had to. But even by the time Donegal visited last weekend, you can feel their team morphing back into the same summer version.
Thomas McPhillips has done really well, entrusted to tag Jamie Brennan last week and doing it superbly. Gary Mohan and Killian Lavelle were around the middle, no huge pile of football at this level under them, but certainly pieces.
Stephen O’Hanlon’s extra stone weight has transformed him, and he could be a serious addition. Seán Jones made a match-winning contribution off the bench with 1-2 and would be unlucky not to start.
But like the margins of Roscommon’s wins, Monaghan found themselves two down last weekend. Having hauled themselves level, Jamie Brennan hit the underside of Rory Beggan’s crossbar. From there it’s a very short hop to relegation.
Instead they have hope and home advantage. Both those things have always stood Monaghan well. Why should this weekend be any different?
