KIERAN Hughes says there is not a chance of him retiring before his elder brother Darren – and wants to play a bit more ball with Jack McCarron on the county stage.
The Hughes brothers posted composed displays in last weekend’s 10-poInt Ulster Championship win over Down while McCarron produced another scoring spree in the Monaghan forward line.
Now wearing the Farney jersey for 14 years, Kieran says he’s not going anywhere until Darren, three years older, hangs up his inter-county boots.
Asked what keeps him motivated to play for Monaghan, the 32-year-old said: “I don’t know, I could probably narrow it down and seeing the brother still there and thinking I’m not quitting before him!
“It would be scandalous to retire before Darren. ‘Mansy’ [Conor McManus], Karl [O’Connell] and Drew [Wylie] and those boys are ahead of me now, so I’ll wait until they’re getting wheel-chaired around the place before me!”
Joking aside, he added: “Darren is only part of it, but it’s the young lads that keep me going as well. And I never got playing properly with Jack at county level, so I want to give that as much time as possible because he’s an outrageous baller, a serious football brain.
“People go on about the small population of Monaghan but you want to keep the conveyor belt going and you’ve the likes of Andrew Woods, Gary Mohan, Shane Hanratty and these lads coming through. You have to keep going. You look at Down and they’ve been changing their team every year, whereas Monaghan have kept the fulcrum there most of the time and hopefully more young lads keep coming through because you’re nothing without them.”
In recent seasons, Hughes found himself on the Monaghan bench more times than he wanted but with an injury-free pre-season behind him, he’s become first choice again.
“It was probably fairly easy to jump ship over the last couple of years because the game-time wasn’t coming for me and the body was feeling niggly.
“You can make all the excuses in the world but you just have to drive on and keep going over the winter months and, thank God, the body has held up and I’ve had a wee bit of luck over the last number of months. But I’ll not jump ship before Darren, I can assure of that!”
After breezing past Down, Monaghan now face Derry in the Ulster semi-finals on May 15 with Hughes keen for the side to shore up the holes that led to two Down goals either side of half-time last weekend.
Caolan Mooney nipped in for Down’s first goal on the cusp of half-time and Pat Havern bagged the other seconds after the restart to somehow narrow Monaghan’s lead to just two points.
But the Mournemen couldn’t sustain their challenge with the home side out-scoring them 0-9 to 0-1 between the 36th and 60th minutes after Havern’s major.
“If you’re conceding goals in Championship games you’re going to be in trouble," Hughes cautioned.
"It’s never nice to concede them, especially two. Conceding one at the start of the second half from the throw-in, I mean, that’s a non-negotiable, really, and we’re going to have to look at that.
"But in conditions like that I thought our first touch was good. In certain moments it wasn’t up to standard – their first goal came off our kick-out and we didn’t grab it. We’ll sit down and look at it and see what we can do ahead of the semi-finals.”
