COULD this be Monaghan’s year? It has become the perennial question as the Ulster title triumphs of 2013 and 2015 fade further from view.
Coming up on seven years since the Anglo-Celt last rested on Farney soil, that elusive All-Ireland breakthrough is as close now – or as far away, depending on your perspective - as it was then.
The clock continues to tick on the golden generation of Rory Beggan, Colin Walshe, Karl O’Connell, Kieran Duffy, Drew Wylie, Fintan Kelly, the Hughes brothers, Darren and Kieran, and of course the main man up top.
Having turned 34 in November, opportunities to light up the inter-county stage may be running out for Conor McManus, yet still he continues to defy those troublesome hips with breathtaking brilliance.
In between his two spells as Monaghan manager, Seamus McEnaney told anyone who would listen that his main regret first time around was that McManus was only finding his feet as Tommy Freeman’s fire fizzled out.
Had their playing peaks aligned, the Farney forward line would have frightened the living daylights out of any full-back line in the land. And so, that brings us to Jack McCarron.
In the search for a support act as McManus’s career blossomed, the Currin man with the wand of a left foot has always appeared the perfect foil.
Yet the irritation for Monaghan - and especially for McCarron - is the extent to which injuries have prevented him bringing his best on a consistent basis.
It started with a tear in the rotator cuff at the end of 2012, the year he was first asked into the senior panel by Eamonn McEneaney. Since then there has been a torn cruciate knee ligament, several hamstring tears, ankle surgery, a knee cartilage injury picked up with the club post-lockdown that also required surgery, ruling him out of the Farney’s 2020 Championship.
Now 29, and coming into his 11th Championship campaign against Down on Saturday, he has accumulated the sum total of 1,124 minutes on the field – the equivalent of around 16 games – through those years.
Considering Monaghan have played 42 Championship games in that period, it is a frustratingly low tally.
Malachy O’Rourke was Farney boss for most of that time, from the end of 2012 until 2019.
The Derrylin man could see from early on what McCarron had to offer, the plague of injuries proving a hindrance for both as he sought to allieviate some of the scoring burden from McManus’s shoulders.
“Jack has tremendous skill, tremendous vision – he can see pictures unfolding around him very quickly. He’d admit himself he wouldn’t have been the quickest over the ground but he made up for it in other ways.
“At that stage it would’ve been levelled at us that we were depending on ‘Mansy’ too much, with Jack there and Conor McCarthy coming in, there were more scoring forwards.
“Unfortunately the injuries definitely did affect him at times when he was getting a run. Outside of that it was maybe our own fault - we were always trying to get that balance between scoring forwards and the other fellas with the athleticism around them.
“There was probably a mixture of things. We could all see with Jack… there was never a point where you doubted his commitment, or his team ethic, and certainly not his ability.
“It was more frustration that injuries held him back and probably our own fault as well at times – maybe he was going well then a game or two he might not play as well and you’d switch things around.”
Despite those return trips to hell and back, on each occasion he returned, hungry for more - determined to make his mark in county colours, just as his Allstar father Ray had done generations earlier.
“When I get the green light to go back playing, I don’t really think about,” McCarron told The Irish News last year.
“Once you’re fit to play you’re ready to go - I wouldn’t be one for thinking about injuries I’ve had in the past. I’ll be full steam ahead once I’m back.
“I just really enjoy playing football and really love playing for Monaghan.”
“Listen,” says O’Rourke, “you couldn’t get a more committed fella than Jack. He worked really hard to get himself back after each injury.
“That’s just the kind of character he us. There never was any question he was going to pull the pin or throw in the towel - he was always very keen to get back as quick as he could and get going again.”
And, in spite of the hurt and the low moments, that strength of spirit has brought McCarron some unforgettable days.
Even this year injury left him sidelined from mid-February until his dramatic re-emergence on the final day of the League.
Thrust into a relegation derby duel with Dublin, McCarron showed Monaghan what they had been missing with a mesmerising 2-6 haul that included a sumptuous lob over Dublin ’keeper Michael Shiel – not to mention the last-gasp 40-metre free that preserved the Farney’s Division One status and sent Dessie Farrell’s men down.
As crowds swarmed the field at St Tiernach’s Park, there was one man to whom most were drawn.
It wasn’t the first time McCarron’s heroics had saved Monaghan’s skin either. In June last year, again having missed the earlier stages of the League, he came off the bench 11 minutes into the relegation play-off against Galway and shot the lights out.
Extra-time couldn’t separate them but then, as penalties loomed with 93 minutes and two seconds on the clock, McCarron dropped the ball over the black spot.
Watching from the wings in Clones both days, Dessie Mone could only smile. For years he had gone toe-to-toe with McCarron on cold nights at Cloghan.
“Always mark the best at training, leave the matches easier…”
Nothing he does could surprise the Clontribret ace now.
“Jack’s movement is very good, he can read where the ball is coming and gets in that scoring zone,” said Mone, who exited the inter-county stage in 2019.
“He’s a guy who does his talking on the scoreboard… he’d annoy you more by some of the scores he would take.”
At the other end of the field, a bit like Paul Finlay before him, McCarron is a man other forwards relish playing alongside – and Stephen O’Hanlon has no problem admitting he and county team-mate Miceal Bannigan could be founding fathers of the Jack McCarron fan club.
“If I was being dead honest with you, Jack is probably the best footballer I’ve ever played with,” said the Carrickmacross man, who has taken a year away from the inter-county scene.
“I mean that as far as skill and mastery of the game goes, I can’t think of anyone like him. He can see openings in a game, but also has the technical ability to exploit them. Like, I could be running to my left, forced onto my weaker foot and see a pass, but I might have to turn around and fist it sideways.
“Whereas Jack - right or left, instep, outside of the boot - he can exploit opportunities a defender gives him. That’s what separates Jack from a lot of players.”
And for all the nights spent on the same training field, or side by side with the county, it was when pitted against each other for their clubs that O’Hanlon really got his eyes opened.
“It was one of the most impressive things I had ever seen.
“Currin were after coming from junior to intermediate, intermediate to senior, and Jack ran around Emmett Park and kicked something mental.
“But I remember him taking on a shot under the clubhouse, essentially the endline, outside of his right, three boys running at him. Now, he narrowly missed it, but not one of his team-mates gave out to him.
“They were all shouting and roaring about the next kick-out, but if that had been anyone else probably in the country, you’d have had 10 lads asking ‘what are ye at?’
“That’s the respect and appreciation anybody who has played with him would have. When I was first brought in under Malachy, when Jack was on the ball, you could run anywhere and he’d be able to find you.
“People say he’s slow, he’s actually not nearly as slow as some people think, but the way he plays, it’s almost like the game is in slow motion for him.”
And while those late interventions against Galway last year and then Dublin a matter of weeks ago might add weight to claims that he does his best work in the League, O’Hanlon believes McCarron is born to the big stage.
“Look at the Armagh game in Newry last year, and as far as I was concerned he was our best player in the Ulster final.
“When I think back to my first few years on the panel, we lost to Cavan in Ulster two years in-a-row – people may not remember that Jack wasn’t there. His contribution, and his importance, maybe it goes under the radar.”
Saturday offers another chance to consolidate his Championship status.
McCarron’s first half display in that Ulster semi-final win over Armagh last year was a joy to behold – bagging 1-1, laying on a goal for Bannigan and exchanging passes with Darren Hughes for the Scotstown man to rifle home. He was central to all that was good about Monaghan’s scintillating attacking play.
And the tactical evolution at county level, even since O’Rourke’s reign came to an end in 2019, means there could be much more to come in the years ahead.
“Back then, we were often playing one or two forwards up at times. You’d a lot of workers in there,” says the former Farney boss.
“Now there’s a much bigger emphasis on kick-outs and pressing kick-outs, the game seems to be more open, and that’s always going to suit out-and-out forwards like Jack, the score-takers.
“Hopefully now he gets an injury-free run, and gets that opportunity to really flourish.”
