The football championship this past weekend offered starkly contrasting stories; Monaghan’s controlled joy in Clones and Carlow’s 28-point humiliation in their outdated Dr Cullen Park.
Tyrone’s first defeat to their southern neighbours since 1988 appeared to anger Mickey Harte so much that he refused to comment to the media.
Thankfully veteran Monaghan midfielder Dick Clerkin was full of chatter. The mindset radically altered, beating Tyrone wasn't about life and death, it was just another game.
“That’s the pressure we put on ourselves far too much, prior to Malachy [O’Rourke] coming. We ‘had’ to do this, we ‘had’ to win an Ulster title. That pressure maybe weighed on us too much.
“Malachy said to us during the week, you know, there’s one and a half billion people in China that couldn’t give a shite about that game today. That puts things in perspective. The worst thing that could happen today is that we lose here to Tyrone, and that’s it, we push on.
“It was about going out, enjoying it, playing without expectation and just focusing on the job at hand. We were physically well-prepared, we knew we had the players, and we had a management team that would make the right choices.”
Emotional side
Clerkin added: “Maybe we have stopped talking about ‘having’ to beat Tyrone, that we can’t go back here as losers. None of that talk was thrown about, because what does that mean? It means nothing. You are focussing on something you have no control over.
“Players have a job to do, a system of play in terms of players knowing how to do their job. They focused on that, not the emotional side.
“Again, Malachy, the crew and the players put an end to that talk. You just go out, focus on your job and see how far it takes you.”
One of those players is Conor McManus. Feared to be gone for the summer, having damaged ankle ligaments on the May Bank Holiday weekend, the current All Star planted 0-6 from frees in a 70-minute stretch.
“Malachy is very conscious of keeping people’s expectations in check. Before the match when Conor was announced, if it had have been announced a couple days earlier it would have been a lot of talk, maybe unnecessary pressure. So much has gone into getting Conor back, he was captain this year, an All-Star last year and he was looking forward to a big season.
“To get struck down with an injury that can end people’s seasons, I think to come back and the medical team to get him to play 70 minutes there today was phenomenal and I am just delighted for him because he deserves every bit of it.”
Of course, Monaghan are only leaving base camp. Armagh next, possibly Donegal after, before the rest of the country gets interested.
“If we want to talk about us being a top-tier team, we have to take that pressure. Plenty of times over the years we haven’t dealt with pressure like that, but this team with Malachy, we can manage expectation well.
“He will dampen down things…all we can do is worry about ourselves…Armagh are a county steeped in tradition, they are aware that tradition was being questioned over the last few years and they have turned a corner, no more than we did last year. So we will be looking at their team, they are very much in the same mould as we were last year.”
Elsewhere, tonight, Carlow manager Anthony Rainbow begins the daunting rehabilitation process necessary after conceding seven goals to Meath on their own patch.
“There are some very good footballers in that team,” Rainbow was adamant. “Barry-John Molloy had a brilliant game on Graham Reilly [keeping him scoreless]. He was taken off. I believe Barry-John is one of the best corner backs in Ireland.
“Paul Broderick, on his day is one of the best forwards in the country, he is a super forward.
“We have hard-working players like Daniel St Ledger, Michael Meaney, David Bambrick – all of them would do anything for Carlow. “We’ll be back in here Tuesday night chipping away . . . getting ready for Waterford.
