The underdogs tag doesn’t really apply to Monaghan. No matter what age grade or competition, you can write the Farney men off at your peril, they thrive off the doubt.
The U20’s were second best for most of their preliminary round victory over Armagh and once again trailed for the majority of their quarter-final against Cavan, but on both occasions Paul Curran’s men came from behind to win by two-points.
You just can’t write them off. On Wednesday, they’ll face their toughest challenge to date as they come up against Conor Laverty’s high flying Down, who dethroned the All-Ireland champions Tyrone in the last round.
“When you’re on the sideline all you can see is things that aren’t working out and we seemed to make a lot of mistakes,” said Monaghan manager Paul Curran. “We were slow to get going (against Cavan) but the secret is to keep going and in fairness, they fought very, very hard.
“There was a lot of switches made, there was a lot of work done on the sideline, but they really dug it out because the odds were against us, it wasn’t going well. Cavan were playing well, and I still don’t know how we won it, but we got ahead at the right time thank God.”
One of those switches included moving Ryan Duffy, who started at midfield despite wearing the number two jersey, back to corner back to pick up Cavan danger man Darragh Lovett and the move paid off.
Duffy, younger brother of Monaghan senior captain Kieran, negated Lovett’s threat and even got forward to kick a score as Monaghan marched towards the finish line in the dying minutes.
“We missed his influence (out the field), but he curbed the influence of the men who were causing us trouble. He showed great leadership, he’s a good link man out in the middle and you can play him anywhere.
“He did the business. I’m not saying he blotted young Lovett out, but he certainly did a good job containing him,” added Curran.
It’s Down up next and Curran admits he doesn't know a whole pile about the Mourne men as Monaghan have been taking the competition one game at a time.
“I don’t know much about Down, I didn’t know anything about Tyrone either, the idea was we’d worry about them if we got past Cavan.
“Down traditionally at underage they’re good, their colleges are good, they play a nice brand of attacking football, they’re not going to be simple.
“They beat Tyrone convincingly and it’s a great opportunity for both teams to get to the final. I think Down are always a sleeping giant, they’re full of good footballers, morale was just low there in the county.
“The seniors are going well, the U20s are getting the bounce effect and it’s not going to be simple. I know nothing about them but obviously they’re very good and we’ll do our best.”
