NFL Division One: Dublin 1-18 Monaghan 0-17
Ger Brennan cracked a rueful enough smile when he came to the press room on Saturday night. He knew his Dublin team had got away with one against Monaghan but the first points of the 2026 league were in the bag and at least now he could talk about the talking he’d done after the Mayo match with a bit of breathing room. Had the visitors taken any of their chances, maybe he wouldn’t have been as relaxed. But they didn’t so he was.
“It was probably unlike me,” he said of his comments a fortnight ago. “I shouldn’t have said it publicly, possibly. But the lads were forewarned – they’re great lads, the response was great. I had a few one-on-ones with guys in the couple of days afterwards and it was a fairly simple chat with them. Where’s your head at? Where’s your heart at? The work the fellas put in was incredible and I’m thrilled with their effort on the pitch.”
Goals win games, misses get you relegated. An Arctic night in Croke Park saw two middling teams waste a world of chances between them, leaving it to Dublin substitute Joe Quigley to decide matters with his first kick of a ball in intercounty football. His goal on 63 minutes finally killed off a Monaghan team that was all too willing to help the home side out of its torpor.
Both teams spent the evening with their defences getting ripped apart but only one side made any impression on the scoreboard when it happened. Dublin created four clear goal chances and scored a total of 1-2 off them, which isn’t even that great and would have been costly on another night. They got away with it here because Monaghan got in for six premium sights of goal and came away with the princely total of 0-0.
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“On the positive side, we created a lot of them,” said Monaghan manager Gabriel Bannigan. “But we missed them all. If we’d taken even one of them, particularly in that second half when we were pretty dominant, momentum was with us and I think it might have been a different outcome.
“But that’s sport. We didn’t take any of them, Dublin got theirs. That, plus Con’s two magical two-pointers was the difference. That’s the reason Ger [Brennan] was in here talking about a much-needed victory and I’m in here talking about a very spirited performance where we just left the result behind.”
For their part, Dublin can take the two points from this and probably not a whole lot more. Monaghan were missing nine regulars through injury and lost Ryan McAnespie to a hamstring before half-time. Bannigan must feel like he’s running a field hospital as much as football team – he’s had to blood seven debutants in the league already this year, plus four more off the bench. It doesn’t say a lot for Dublin that they were second best for so long here.
Brennan said afterwards that he went through his notebook during the week and found that the Dubs had looked at 164 players over the winter. Having whittled them down to a panel of 37, you wouldn’t say there’s a whole pile of evidence they’ve found very much that they didn’t already know about. The evidence of the league so far says they look like a team who can’t win if Con O’Callaghan doesn’t do the winning for them. Nothing new there.
Dublin’s first-half shooting was hapless at times, with just seven points scored from 18 shots. They attempted six two-pointers before the break and didn’t score with any of them. The nadir came on the half hour when O’Callaghan himself turned around and kicked a tap-over free backwards, only for Ross McGarry’s two-point shot to drop into Rory Beggan’s chest. They were a little better in the second half. It would have been some achievement to have been worse.
O’Callaghan in particular seemed to decide he’d basically had enough of the messing. He scored six points in the second half, five of them from play, four of them from a couple of towering two-pointers with his left foot when the game was in the balance. As long as Dublin have him, they have possibilities. It’s a lot to put on one set of shoulders though
“I think our shot-to-score ratio in the first half was around 20 per cent,” said Brennan. “We created a lot of chances but didn’t take them. I think in the second half we got the shot-to-score up to around 60. I don’t know how many chances we had and how many Monaghan had but I’d say the hardest one all night was the one Joe Quigley scored, which was Roy Of The Rovers stuff on his debut.”
Quigley’s goal was indeed a pearler and laid bare the lack of composure Monaghan showed at the other end. They butchered four goal chances in the first half, three times drawing smart saves out of Hugh O’Sullivan in the Dublin goal. The usually reliable Micheál Bannigan squandered a further two in the second half. If, as seems highly likely, they are playing Division Two football next year, Monaghan won’t need much of an autopsy to work out why.
Dublin could very well be playing them there. This was a win for Brennan’s team but it was no panacea. They have Kerry in Croker this Saturday and if they give up six goal chances in that one, you can be damn sure the return won’t be 0-0.
Dublin: Hugh O’Sullivan; Eoin Murchan, Nathan Doran (0-0-1), David Byrne; Ross McGarry (0-0-1), Brian Howard, Alex Gavin; Ciarán Kilkenny (0-0-2), Charlie McMorrow; Luke Breathnach (0-0-1), Seán Bugler (0-0-3), Niall Scully; Paddy Small (0-0-1), Con O’Callaghan (0-2-4, 2f, 1tpf, 1 45), Lorcan O’Dell. Subs: Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne for Breathnach, 47 mins; Greg McEnaney (0-0-1) for McMorrow, 50 mins; Killian McGinnis for McGarry, 51 mins; Joe Quigley (1-0-0) for O’Dell, 56 mins; Niall O’Callaghan for Kilkenny, 63 mins.
Monaghan: Rory Beggan (0-1-1, 1tpf, 1 45); Darragh McElarney, Cameron Dowd, Ryan Wylie (0-0-1); Ryan O’Toole, Dessie Ward (0-1-2), Oisin McGorman (0-0-1); Michael McCarville, Gary Mohan; Karl Gallagher, Michael Bannigan (0-0-2), Stephen O’Hanlon; Aaron Carey (0-0-3), Andrew Woods (0-0-2, 1f), Ryan McAnespie (0-0-1). Subs: Fionan Carolan for McAnespie, 32 mins; Liam McDonald for Gallagher, 53 mins; Eddie Walsh for Woods, 59 mins; Darragh Treanor for McGorman, 67 mins.
Referee: Liam Devanney (Mayo).
