On the windy road from Monaghan town to St Tiernach’s Park, the rain was coming down in sheets.
In Scotstown they can now call that irony. In Clontibret, pathetic fallacy:
“I hear hurricanes a-blowin’.
I know the end is comin’ soon.
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I fear rivers overflowin’.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.
“Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life.
There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
Most in Monaghan would be inclined to roll their eyes at another Scotstown title. A 2013 title was their renaissance, the big dogs back after a slumber of two decades.
But that sleep was nightmare-ridden torture for those in blue.
Conor McCarthy was a different child than those that surrounded him on Sunday. The Scotstown of his youth were so different to this well-oiled machine.
They were ordinary (which when one reflects on in relation to club-level football, you realise it isn’t a criticism at all in a sport of ordinary men).
This crop are now extraordinary (which when one reflects is an almighty complement, an almighty achievement).
The mindset has shifted, the culture has changed. These men will move mountains to ensure that drought cannot and will not happen again:
“It seems to get better every year you win. It’s a disaster if Scotstown don’t win this thing any year. It’s always the goal to get back to Clones on county final day.
“I was lucky enough, I only came in in 2013, so I wasn’t aware of the culture before that, but growing up in Scotstown, going to primary school in Scotstown, I had never really seen Scotstown teams winning.
“You see all the pupils and primary school students out on the pitch here today, it’s brilliant for them, and it’s brilliant for our parish, our community, to see the senior team winning.”
The sight of a heavily bandaged Darren Hughes hassling and harrying would inspire the unborn.
Here lay the pitch where they said his career was at an end. They but never he.
When Cavan went on to beat Monaghan that day, there wasn’t a man in white who wasn’t ashamed that they didn’t claim victory over the Breffni men in honour of their midfield general.
But an injury could never end Darren Hughes’ career. Darren Hughes will end Darren Hughes’ career when Darren Hughes says so.
Kieran too was outstanding, having been tormented with injuries himself in 2024.
McCarthy’s first-half score was outrageous. It was risky, and it was crucial.
He was arguably the only player on the pitch capable of pulling it off, the perfect mix of leadership and star quality with the outside of the left boot.
But it was Shane Carey’s effort straight after the break that the 2023 All-Star was most fixed upon after a first-half that was far from vintage:
“We were happy and we were unhappy (at half-time). We probably thought we defended very well. We were very wasteful I thought in the first half.
“We just needed to settle down into the game, get used to the conditions, take our scores when we got the opportunities.
“Shane’s score in the second half really settled us and I think we kicked on from then.
“Some of our big players stood up, Kieran, Jack (McCarron) with the goal, and Darragh Murray was throwing his weight around the middle, winning dirty ball for us.
“It was a real collective effort.”
Those conditions make it all the more impressive that McCarron claimed the man of the match gong.
But as McCarthy alluded to, he was just one of many who stood up when Scotstown needed it most.
The deluge hardly let up, but in the eye of the storm was calm and experience. Experience in terms of years, yes, but experience in terms of winning.
You’d forget how young the likes of Gavin McPhillips is, making his debut in 2019 and making a final every year since. But as McCarthy says, it just gets better.
Or as McPhillips says, it feels “f***ing unreal”, quickly followed by: “Am I allowed to swear on this?”.
As it turns out, yes.
That was past the point of no return, the damage done by his team too as they await the Fermanagh champions in a Glen-less Ulster.
The sky is the limit as the blue moon rises.