Monaghan at crossroads as Beggan tries to kick-start new career
RORY BEGGAN must have watched the NFL play-off game between the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers and wondered. An absolute thriller produced a game of such fine margins that when it came to a scapegoat for the Packers’ defeat, plenty of fingers pointed to Anders Carlson.
In the fourth quarter, the 25-year-old, 6’5” placekicker lined up for a 41-yard field goal. Convert it and his team’s lead would be out to seven. Instead, he missed and the 49ers used that momentum swing to go on and win the game 24-21. Within days the Packers had signed a new kicker to compete with Carlson. Don’t ever underestimate their importance.
Monaghan certainly don’t need to be told that, not ahead of this evening’s clash with Dublin at Croke Park. Beggan has been at the heart of the county’s gameplan for years now – not just a goalkeeper with dynamite in his boot off restarts but someone with the skillset to quarterback the game in a roving role and come forward to kick long range scores.
All winter he wowed crowds in the club championship with his high-wire act until Scotstown’s run was ended by eventual All-Ireland champions Glen in the All-Ireland final. Watching him boom one over from all of 60 metres is part of the reason he then dropped the bomb that he was on the NFL’s radar.
Beggan, along with Wicklow and Down goalkeepers Mark Jackson and Charlie Smyth are among four Irish players who will try out to be kickers and punters as part of the NFL’s international player pathway this spring. Connacht rugby player Darragh Leader is the other who will go through the NFL Combine process next month in search of an NFL rookie contract worth up to $800,000.
And Beggan isn’t messing around. ‘I want to be in the top 32 kickers in the world,’ he told Pro Football Ireland. ‘I want to succeed. I want to be the best.’
What is an incredible opportunity for the player means that Monaghan are likely to
find out this spring just how much they depend on him. If Beggan happens to make it, he will leave huge boots to fill.
Just to focus Monaghan minds further, attacking talisman Conor McManus revealed this week that 2024 is likely to be his last season in a Monaghan senior jersey.
A ball hasn’t been kicked in the Allianz Football League and already there is a sense of an end of an era. The challenge for manager Vinny Corey is changing that narrative as soon as possible.