Allianz National Football League Division Two
Monaghan 0-17 Kildare 0-12 12/2/12
Monaghan got off the mark in the NFL Division Two with an impressive win over Kildare in Clones on Sunday. Paul Finlay starred for Monaghan, kicking seven points, as Eamon McEneaney’s men put the wasteful performance against Meath behind them in style with a strong team performance. Kildare had Brian Flanagan sent off after he was picked out of a scuffle at the end of the first half, but Monaghan were already looking like the better team and they were worthy winners over the 70-plus minutes. Finlay had good support from the three Hughes’s – Kieran and Darren and David – and Owen Duffy, while Ronan McNally and Matthew McKenna also performed well on their first NFL starts. Eoghan O’Flaherty, Eamonn Callaghan, Darryl Flynn and Hugh McGrillen had their moments for Kildare, who are surprisingly left without a point from their opening two games.
Monaghan opened the scoring through David Hughes after Owen Duffy and Paul Finlay had done well to keep a Darren Hughes ’45 in play, before Matthew McKenna linked up with Stephen Gollogly to land a good point. McKenna added another well-taken score after good work by David and Kieran Hughes and Dick Clerkin, although Mikey Conway and Eoghan O’Flaherty converted a brace of 35-metre frees, after fouls on Pádraig O’Neill and Brian Flanagan, to bring Kildare back into it. Finlay finished off a flowing move with a fine point before turning provider for Dick Clerkin to add his name to Monaghan’s list of scorers, although Kildare responded with a point from play by Eamonn Callaghan and a 30-metre free by O’Flaherty. Finlay converted a 20-metre free for a foul on Duffy and Malone got on the end of another well-worked attack to kick a point, before Finlay landed another fine score. A Callaghan point and another 20-metre free by O’Flaherty cut Kildare’s deficit to two, but Finlay curled over a free from a difficult angle to send Monaghan in leading by 0-9 to 0-6.
Conway got the first point of the second half, but well-taken points from Owen Duffy and Kieran Hughes increased Monaghan’s lead. O’Flaherty and Pádraig Fogarty found their range to give Kildare hope, only for Finlay to kick three in succession for the hosts – two from play and one from a free. A Conway point was quickly cancelled out by Kieran Hughes, who punched a Dessie Mone shot over the bar, before Hughes set up Duffy to blaze over via the upright. James Turley became Monaghan’s eighth scorer when he opened up a seven-point gap and although Callaghan and O’Flaherty kicked the final two points, Monaghan still had five to spare at the final whistle. Monaghan’s next game is away to Derry at Celtic Park on March 3
Monaghan: M Keogh; R McNally, Darren Hughes, D Malone (0-1); V Corey, D Mone, David Hughes (0-1); D Clerkin (0-1), J Turley (0-1); M McKenna (0-2), P Finlay (0-7, 3f), S Gollogly; O Duffy (0-2), K Hughes (0-2), D Morgan.
Subs: N McAdam for McNally (inj., 49 mins), M Downey for McKenna (60), D Wylie for Malone, C McGuinness for Gollogly (both 70).
Kildare: S Connolly; M Scanlon, H McGrillen, O Lyons; B Flanagan, T O’Neill, E O’Flaherty (0-5, 3f); D Flynn, R Sweeney; E Callaghan (0-3), M Conway (0-3, 1f), P O’Neill; K Donnelly, T O’Connor, P Fogarty (0-1).
Subs: J Doyle (Capt.) for Donnelly (23), J Kavanagh for O’Connor (40), M Foley for Scanlon (44), A Smith for P O’Neill (56), G White for Sweeney (62).
Referee: J McQuillan (Cavan).
Monaghan manager Eamon McEneaney was delighted with not only his team’s win but the performance against Kildare, saying that some of his players had “come of age”. He highlighted the elimination of errors as key: “We’ve been threatening to play like that for a while but we’ve been making too many mistakes to win games, but today we tightened up on that and we didn’t make as many mistakes. We played the sort of football I think we can play at times, although obviously there are still things we can improve on and it’s only the first step as we would see it. Last week we were very disappointed with the amount of wides we kicked, so we worked hard on that during the week and it worked today.”
McEneaney acknowledged that it was very important to get off the mark before the mini-break, saying “It was a huge game for Kildare and for us because you didn’t want to be going into this three-week break on no points and we would like to win all our home games. Certainly, Kildare were a huge threat coming here, they’re a team that everyone has been looking at since the start of the year, but I think our lads stood up today, there were a few fellas who came of age that we did blood last year and that is starting to pay off now, but it is only a first step.”
When talk turned to Monaghan’s much-improved shooting, McEneaney replied: “It’s great to hear that after last week! Our shooting was poor (against Meath) but the lads have worked on hard on it. All shooting comes down to technique and making sure you perfect that and I think we did well on that today, but at times it was lethargic in the second half and we can improve on that.” He didn’t think Monaghan’s numerical advantage in the second half had made much difference: “It’s hard to know, in the first half we had been doing well, the extra man gave us more of a headache for a while, we were playing an extra man back and they were pushing at us”, but admitted that it had maybe contributed to Kildare getting tired legs late on.
Referring to the half-time incident, McEneaney played it down, saying: “It was an awful lot of pushing and shoving from what I could see but you don’t want to see those things. I just wanted to get the boys off the field and into the dressing room. The strange thing about it is there was no malice either in the first half or the second half, despite that. I didn’t really see what was going on and it’s unfortunate that Kildare lost a man, I don’t like to see any team lose a man.”
Asked about the star role played by Paul Finlay, McEneaney praised his top scorer while also praising his team-mates for their work: “Paul was very, very good. All round it was a team performance but Paul is a top-class player and he stood out today in terms of his scoring ability but he couldn’t have done it without the work of the rest of the lads and he would be the first to admit that.”
By michael Sun 12th Feb
