WHILE Monaghan’s champion U21 footballers celebrated long into the night, their manager stepped away from the revelry to engage in some quiet reflection.
Ciaran McBride wrestled with his emotions, shifting, moment to moment, from pride to an unease at what he had just been a part of. The former Tyrone player had engineered a major triumph over his native county.
What’s more, he had set himself against dear friends and former team-mates Feargal Logan, Brian Dooher and Peter Canavan. In these difficult but strangely euphoric circumstances, McBride would have no truck with celebrations.
“Feargal Logan has always been a true gentleman and always been a friend to me. Wee Pete and Brian, we soldiered in the trenches for a long time,” he said.
“It was not easy, I absolutely detest having to come up against Tyrone and the three lads. But you have to do a job, you have to win. It’s tough, but that’s what you have to do. I didn’t celebrate with the minors [after the 2013 victory], I’ll not celebrate this either, you never forget your roots. I will never, ever celebrate against my own county. That won’t happen. But I’m delighted for Monaghan because it’s been a fantastic week for them. To retain Division One status and then win the U21 is massive.”
The Farney county’s two-point win over the All-Ireland champions in a gripping Ulster final at the Athletic Grounds gave them a first title at this level since 1999 and only a third in their history. In a nerve-shredding finish to an intense encounter, McBride’s fear was the outcome would be decided by an error.
“It was just frantic, it was end-to-end stuff and the fear factor was that we would concede a goal. It was going to come down to somebody making a mistake and, unfortunately, that’s not the way it should be in a game.
“A game should be won by somebody doing something right, rather than doing something wrong and ,ultimately, we were better in that last five minutes. Tyrone put us under the cosh and a simple mistake could have made the difference and that would have been cruel for a player to make a mistake and lose a final.
“Probably, the conditions in the second-half didn’t suit a forward line, we probably adapted better to it than what Tyrone did but, at the end of the day, if you look at that last 10 minutes, it was just frantic, end-to-end stuff."
Monaghan were forced into a defensive reshuffle late in the first-half when they lost skipper Kevin Loughran to a black card. But Barry Kerr took over as man-marker on Red Hand ace Lee Brennan and emerged as one of the key men in a second-half shut-out which saw Tyrone score just four times.
“It changed it massively because Lee Brennan is one of the top forwards in Ireland and you saw what he did in the first-half," McBride added.
“To lose our man-to-man marker did create an opportunity for another player to step up to the mark, but thankfully Lee didn’t have as big an impact in the second-half as I expected him to have, but it was a massive loss.
“In fairness to Barry Kerr, he did a great job marking what is one of the marquee forwards in Ulster at the minute. You take your chances and you have to back your own players and we backed our other corner-back to mark Lee Brennan and he did a great job on him.”
One of the game’s defining moments came in the opening five minutes, when goalkeeper Conor Forde pulled off a terrific double save from Tyrone’s Sean Fox: “It was fantastic," said McBride.
"Sometimes, those thing go against you. It could have rolled out to a forward, it didn’t, it was a double save and we got possession again and got back up the field. It was massively important.”
MONAGHAN will play Cork in the All-Ireland U21 FC semi-final after the Rebels recorded a dramatic 3-9 to 1-14 win over Kerry in Tralee on Thursday night.
Substitute Cian Dorgan scored the winner in injury-time after the hosts had reeled in Cork, who had led by six points at one stage in the first-half. Monaghan will play the Rebels on Saturday, April 16, the same day as the other semi-final between Mayo and Dublin.
