RIVALRY HAS REAL KICK TO IT
FOR any Donegal supporters who remember the long, hot summer of 1995, even their team’s current form isn’t enough to quell the trepidation they feel whenever Monaghan loom on the horizon.
On a baking May afternoon in Clones, Donegal ended Down’s reign as All-Ireland champions in the Ulster preliminary round. Backboned by many heroes of 1992, the team had the whiff of Croke Park in their nostrils.
Their chests were puffed out as they welcomed Monaghan to Ballybofey for the Ulster quarterfinal. Before the ball was thrown in that June day, Donegal were favourites to win Sam Maguire while Monaghan were one of Gaelic football’s bottom-feeders at the time.
By the end of the day, the 7/1 outsiders had shocked the GAA world, hammering Donegal 1-14 to 0-8. It was one of only two Championship victories that Monaghan managed in the 1990s — but even when they occupied opposite ends of football’s spectrum, the Farney County always sensed there was a chance against Donegal.
Long before they went to war in recent times, Donegal had reason to be fearful of Monaghan. That broiling June day is a snapshot of the strange rivalry between the two border counties. Despite being half Donegal’s size, there’s something about Monaghan that makes footballers from the northwest a little unsure of themselves.
Under Malachy O’Rourke, Monaghan have been one of the most remarkable GAA stories of recent years. They are an example of how the absolute most can be made of resources, no matter how small you are. Time and again, they are turning the tables on what is expected. This spring, yet again, was supposed to be a struggle. But they travel to Ballyshannon tomorrow, knowing a win over Donegal will mean they have a foot in their first League final since Sean McCague’s great side reached that stage 31 years ago.
And the thing about Monaghan is that they always expect to beat Donegal. A decade has passed since the old rivals became reacquainted after Seamus McEnaney revitalised his native county in the mid-2000s. In that time, they have had 11 battles across League and Championship and Monaghan had claimed seven wins, Donegal just three (there has been one draw — last year’s Ulster semi-final).
It has been a lopsided relationship with an undercurrent of nastiness. Ten years ago, one Monaghan player was seen laughing in the face of an opponent as they romped to an eight-point qualifier win. In the 2014 Division 2 final at Croke Park, Rory Kavanagh was sent off for jabbing his boot in Darren Hughes’ midriff.
That was the game where Eamon McGee revealed that one Monaghan player was in his ear about how that Donegal side would never get the better of them. A few months later, they did — in the 2014 Ulster final. The out-pourings on the Clones pitch that day were as wild as any celebrations in Croke Park during their time at the top.
At the homecoming in Donegal town later that night, Jim McGuinness explained that afternoon was about more than just winning back the Anglo-Celt Cup. ‘Today was the day we wanted. We wanted to be in Clones and we wanted the opposition we played today. There was a lot of pain from last year. Those questions had to be answered,’ McGuinness said at the time.
There have been red cards and melees, memorable matches and not so-memorable games — those that were present still shudder at the memory of the grim League encounter in Letterkenny in 2015.
Their paths cross tomorrow in a top-of-the-table clash that nobody would have predicted at the start of February. Both teams were expected to struggle this year, but they meet in Fr Tierney Park in what is effectively a League quarter-final. And they do so having injected a fair bit of youth in sides that had grown stale.
When Donegal out-battled Monaghan in the Ulster semifinal replay last July, there was a school of thought that O’Rourke had worked all the miracles he could with the team. That view was only enhanced when Longford dumped them out of the qualifiers seven days later. There was even a feeling that the county would lose the highly-rated Fermanagh native last winter. But as Nudie Hughes pointed out this week, O’Rourke has created a family feel in this Monaghan side and he wasn’t ready to leave his family just yet.
O’Rourke signed on for two more years and boosted by Jack McCarron’s return from longterm injury and the emergence of youthful talent such as Dessie Ward, Monaghan is no longer looked upon as Conor McManus plus his supporting cast.
The sides find themselves in an unexpected place this weekend, with the promise of an early visit to Croke Park and the possibility of silverware.
It’s not a position many thought that Donegal and Monaghan would find themselves in at the end of March. It is typical of this pair, though, that they find their path to a possible final blocked by the other.