Monaghan aren't learning fast enough to keep up

Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, least of all the club's manager Bobby Browne. But with just over half of the season gone, it seems Monaghan United are still struggling to get to grips with life back in the top-flight.

Though their performances have improved steadily - with a minor hiccup or two along the way - Sunday's showing against St Patrick's Athletic at Inchicore managed to highlight, not just how well they are finally managing to get to grips with the challenge of Premier Division football, but also why they'll most likely be relegated come the summer.

Sunday's game could well have resulted in Browne's side pulling off its biggest upset of the season and recording only the club's second win in 18 games.

Instead, the players greeted the final whistle with clearly mixed emotions, knowing the 1-1 draw was a fine result, but realising more ruthless visitors would have won the game.

Browne remains understandably upbeat about United's prospects over the closing half of the season, refusing to concede the club will be relegated and pointing to the points picked up against Bohemians and St Patrick's.

He also points to the generally improved displays, especially at home, as evidence that his players are still capable of making a scrap of it.

Certainly, on Sunday, they showed a bit of character to come from behind against a club that still sees itself as a title-contender, but it wasn't all good news for Browne and Gary Howlett on the United bench.

The goal their team conceded was soft, a careless giveaway in midfield allowing Liam Kelly to completely open up the defence and set Mbabazi Charles Livingston up for his ninth league goal of the season.

There were other moments, too, when they might have been punished at the back while they had the sort of chances - most memorably Trevor Vaughan's one-on-one with SΘamus Kelly - that sides in their position simply have to capitalise on if they hope to turn things around.

As it is, they are faced with the prospect, Browne admits, of having to beat both Longford and Bray in their next couple of games if they are to haul themselves back into any sort of serious contention for a place in next season's slimmed down Premier Division.

Whatever happens, though, Browne believes that the experience his players have gained during this campaign will stand to both them and their club in the years to come.

He compares it to the leading league sides playing against the better sides in Europe, and insists his developing players have already learned a great many lessons from their encounters with the country's fully-professional sides.

Eventually, that's the way he'd love to see Monaghan go too, but he recognises the sort of money required if the club is to follow the lead of the likes of Shelbourne and Bohemians.

With a smallish population base and fierce competition from the GAA for players and supporters, the club faces a hard time building on their present position, but then they know all about that, having arrived at this point against all the odds.

While the first team still remains unhealthily reliant on players from Dublin, there are signs, in the presence of the likes of young Ashley White (outstanding on Sunday) and Paul Shiels of a positive shift.

At every level, from under-13 to under-21, the club is actively promoting the development of young local talent on which it might build its future.

It's a sign of how quickly things have moved on just down the road at Longford - a club whose own right to league status was widely questioned just five or six years ago - that Browne mentions Stephen Kenny's outfit as role models.

If the fan base could be expanded and the club's first team more firmly rooted in the local community, there is, Longford has shown, no telling what might be achieved.

Monaghan United's manager insists that, as far as he's concerned, he'll be sticking around long enough to find out if it can happen.

emalone@irish-times.ie