Allianz Football League Division One: Monaghan 3-13 Dublin 1-18
EVERY man, woman and child in county Monaghan danced smiling down the Clones tunnel, off home to take down the Holy Picture and put up their framed selfie with Jack McCarron.
The white of the jerseys drowned in ink as a thousand permanent markers and pens miraculously appear in the hands of gleeful children, the county celebrates in a way that’s become warmly familiar to them.
Off past them trudge Dublin. A stone’s throw removed from winning six All-Irelands in-a-row and wondering if it would ever end, they will play in Division Two in 2023.
Monaghan, for the ninth year running, will play in Division One. Only Kerry will be there with a longer unbroken stretch.
With 73 minutes and 30 seconds played, Monaghan were going down with the Dubs. Having led for 60 minutes and by seven points at two different stages of the second half, their lead disintegrated and was wiped out by a 70th minute Dean Rock penalty.
But despite being hit by a vomiting bug and a couple of hamstring tweaks, with Conor McManus fit for only the desperate last 30 seconds, the Farney came up with one last ball.
Andrew Woods drew a free in what’s normally Rory Beggan’s territory, but watched as the buzzing McCarron brought his tally to 2-6 as he saved his county’s skin for the second season running.
“It’s a big one,” said Darren Hughes, the corners of his lips pinned outwards in a permanent state of smile.
“We put a lot of emphasis on Division One every year. People, I suppose, write us off at the start of every year. In the inner circle, we have the belief.
“Even coming here today, we had a lot of injuries and had to call on men that hadn’t much game time this year and hadn’t trained much the last few weeks.
“We left it to the very last but we’d full belief we’d get over the line.”
Dublin were like very little of themselves. When Rock netted the penalty at the beginning of four added minutes, the punctuations of individual quality that had come predominantly from Cormac Costello and impressive sub Lee Gannon looked as though they might pull Dublin out of the nightmare.
But as if to sum up their entire league, they had a 3-v-2 on the last kickout and contrived to collide, lose the ball, concede a free and get beaten.
“To be honest [relegation] is not the concerning thing,” said Dublin boss Dessie Farrell, a former GPA CEO who spoke afterwards while Monaghan boss Seamus McEnaney declined in support of his players as confusion reigned over the GPA’s blackout.
“Our disappointment is based around the inconsistency of the performance after having two decent performances back-to-back there is still some work to do for sure.
“We thought we were at a decent enough trajectory at that point. In the second half we were better; we were flat enough in the first half.
“It is more disappointing I think in terms of the quality of the performance. Obviously, we are looking towards the summer at this point.”
Dublin sent packing, and they don’t even feel like the story as they slip quietly out of St Tiernach’s Park and into the second tier of Gaelic football.
Oh, to be a child of Monaghan these days.
