Monaghan rising
Malachy O’Rouke has developed a team and a game plan that could very well produce the biggest challenge to Dublin’s dominance
THE language of the Gael is ever evolving. I saw two games and four teams – Mayo, Roscommon, Kerry and Tyrone – in the space of 24 hours last weekend and when I informed a friend of my hectic schedule on Monday, the first thing he wanted to know was my ‘take-aways’ from what I had seen.
It is no longer a case of what did you think of a game, but what did you ‘take away’ from it, but it might just be the better word.
In my world, take-aways come in steaming cartons with curry sauce – they’re sweet to the taste, but not necessarily good for you.
Which is exactly like taking away anything out of ball games played in the last weekend in January, they invite you into making tasty predictions which will do little good for your credibility in the long term.
Anyhow, to answer my friend, I did take something out of last weekend, not from the games I saw in Castlebar and Killarney, but from the one in Clones which I recorded on my magic box.
And Monaghan are the main reason for that.
There was nothing that surprised me about them last weekend, except perhaps the result in beating Dublin. I still think, and it may be due to their modest size and a relative lack of success, that some observers still struggle to see them as serious AllIreland contenders.
That is not an issue I have because they are the only team – with the obvious exception of Dublin – about who you can say, with some authority, they continue to evolve year on year. The job manager Malachy O’Rourke has done, and continues to do, is staggering.
He inherited them as a Division 3 team and last Sunday’s win will almost certainly tee up a fifth successive year in the Allianz League’s top tier. Only the big three of Dublin, Kerry and Mayo have enjoyed longer residencies.
Last year, they beat Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Tyrone (twice), Kerry and Dublin and yet when we think of the counties best equipped to take down the Jim Gavin’s men, they hardly ever get a mention.
We need to have that conversation now. And it has nothing to do with last weekend’s result, and everything to do with O’Rourke’s ability to develop his team.
He has managed that both in terms of personnel and in setting out a defined game plan.
In terms of the former, he has introduced the likes of Ryan Wylie, Karl O’Connell, Ryan McAnespie and Niall Kearns in recent years and that process looks set to continue given the impact made by Stephen O’Hanlon off the bench last weekend.
The key to successfully evolving as a team is to identify the areas you need to improve on and finding an attacking foil for the outstanding Conor McManus has been a long-running issue for Monaghan.
It is far too early to suggest that O’Hanlon can be that player on the evidence of half an hour, but he is an option and was, apparently, on O’Rourke’s radar last year when he was committed to playing basketball. O’Rourke’s other skill is how players have progressed under his watch. For example, the Rory Beggan at the outset of his career and the one who received an All-Star are very different players. It may well be that Jack McCarron could be the next to benefit in terms of having his full potential realised. Two years ago he lit up the spring when he went on a red-hot scoring streak at full-forward, but he was unable to sustain it for when it really mattered. He was reinvented as a centre-forward last weekend, showing he has the vision and skill to become a very effective playmaker. While McManus has needed a foil in the full-forward line, he has suffered from a lack of quality service and has been forced to drift deep as a result.
More than happy to fill a playmaking role, he is as good an inside forward as we have seen in the modern era. So much so, that if he was part of the Dublin, Kerry or Mayo setups, you can be sure he’d have double the three All-Stars he currently possesses.
He, too, has developed his game and his physique. He is incredibly strong and, accustomed to ‘special treatment’ from playing in Ulster, can’t be fazed.
Jonny Cooper did his best to get under his skin last Sunday, but ended up on his backside for his efforts. The way McManus exploited the advance mark was very impressive and it is no surprise to hear him say afterwards that he would be in favour of seeing the rule retained for the Championship, but that will not be happening this year.
I suspect the Dublin full-back line, and Cooper in particular, will be thankful for that.
Of course, Gavin has no need to be alarmed as a result of last weekend’s loss but he knows others will take encouragement, not so much from the result, but of how it was achieved.
There is a weakness in this Dublin full-back line when it is attacked with direct, quick ball but then you could argue that is a source of discomfort for most teams.
Indeed, when Dublin get James McCarthy, Jack McCaffrey and Ciarán Kilkenny back on the field, getting the possession and time to test that full-back line will be a lot more challenging.
But before Monaghan’s result is dismissed as irrelevant because they played a weakened Dublin team, we shouldn’t forget that O’Rourke was also shy of Drew Wylie, Vinny Corey, Dessie Mone, Kieran Hughes and Kearns.
There is depth to this Monaghan team and it there for all to see now.