Malachy O’Rourke happy Monaghan team still on an upward curve

In the old days of flint and gunpowder, a shot that produced noise and smoke but no substantial

impact was known as a flash in the pan. For this Monaghan team it’s all about making noise and smoke with a more lasting effect.

“That was the big thing,” said manager Malachy O’Rourke. “We really wanted to make sure people didn’t say last year was a flash in the pan. We wanted to make sure there was more ambition in the group, to really work hard, try and get promotion first of all, to keep things on an upward curve, and then, when we got to the final, we wanted to win that too.

“There is no doubt the boys are putting in great work. Their attitude is first class and it’s great to get a national title. And we can just look forward now to the championship.”

That's normally the way these Division Two finals work out, the winners looking forward to the championship that bit more than the losers, and this was no exception: O'Rourke's team – who won the Division Three title a year ago – continue to make notable gains, and will eagerly await the winners of Down and Tyrone on June 15th.

Pep in their step
"Winning breeds confidence," added O'Rourke, "so we'll go back to training this week and the boys will have a nice pep in their step. This guarantees nothing further down the line, but we'll just prepare as well as we can and focus on the first round of the championship.

“But overall we’d take a lot of positives out of the game. If you come down to Croke Park, that’s where all the major matches are played, you want to perform as well as you can, especially if there is silverware there. Ourselves and Donegal both wanted to get it, and we got it today.”

O’Rourke wasn’t entirely convinced about Donegal’s penalty, Ryan McHugh looking more likely to be outside the area, but he was perfectly happy about the way his team responded.

“The penalty got them back level, but that was probably the biggest thing of the day for us, the way we responded to it.

“The boys showed great character and just great composure in that we didn’t get flustered and went forward and scored the next point and got a good goal after that.”

Indeed it all left Jim McGuinness looking a little flustered, who wasn’t making any excuses. “We’re still promoted and, at the end of the day, that was the objective,” he said.

“The final was a bonus, but when you’re in a final you want to win it. I suppose the positives are that we dug in and got it back to level after the sending off.

“We tried to push on as best we could but the bodies weren’t able to do it. There’s only so long you can survive against the extra man when a team is good with the ball in their hand, and is recycling the ball, and waiting and being patient for the runner coming off the shoulder.”