Last Saturday 10th May, saw the young footballers of Monaghan travel to Lissan, Co. Fermanagh to take part in the qualifiers of the Buncrana Cup. The Buncrana Cup is a competition run under the auspices of the Ulster Council for U-16 Development Squads. The nine counties of Ulster are pooled into three groups of three with the winners of each group qualifying directly for the finals day and the losers playing in a back door competition. In Monaghan’s group they faced the hosts Fermanagh and Ulster Kingpins, Tyrone.
First to face Monaghan were the Ernesiders and playing into a strong breeze, the boys in blue struggled to get to grips with their opponents, but a clinical strike from Michael McAlister and a brace of points of Aaron Courtney steadied the ship and endured that Monaghan led 3-2 at the half-time whistle. Monaghan started the 2nd half brightly with points from Conor Leonard and Fergal Hanratty extended their lead. A dramatic save from Jack Kirk from a Fermanagh counter-attack proved crucial as the game was in the melting-pot at that stage, but Monaghan took a firm grip of this game scoring 1-5 in the last 10 minutes to ensure a 1-10 to 0-3 victory.
Next up for Monaghan was Tyrone. This proved to be an engaging contest and saw the young Monaghan men work really hard in defence and converted their possession into scoring opportunities. Tyrone, playing with the breeze opened the scoring but after a great block from Ben McDevitt resulted in Aaron Courtney bearing down on goals and he was coolness personified, rifling the ball low into the corner of the net. Indeed this was the beginning of a scoring rout with Monaghan scoring a total of 2-4 in a five minute spell with Shane Monaghan scoring the second goal after great inter-play between Fergal Hanratty, Micheal Bannigan and David Garland. Ryan O’Connor and Kieran Burns were a thorn in the side of the Tyrone mid-fielders and this created a platform of ‘go-forward’ ball for the Monaghan forwards to capitalise on. Tyrone finished the half strongly scoring 1-1 to leave Monaghan leading 2-5 to 1-2 at half-time. Monaghan set the tempo of the 2nd half extending their lead with points from Micheal Bannigan and Davy Garland before Tyrone found the back of the Monaghan net again. Monaghan responded again and Micheal Bannigan scored the goal of the game rasping a shot in via the underside of the crossbar after a great build-up move which once again was started in the full-back line. Tyrone closed the gap to three points with three minutes to go after they scored 2-1 in a matter of minutes but scores from Padraig McMahon and another Garland point meant that the Monaghan boys were victorious by 4 points on a score-line of 3-11 to 4-4.
The management team of Garrett Coyle, Martin Corey, Seamus Mullholland and Conor McElvaney were obviously delighted with how their charges performed.
Team manager Garrett Coyle had this to say.
“ It’s an obvious relief that we have qualified for the Buncran Cup Finals directly without having to worry about the back-door. We are delighted with how we played today. A lot of time and effort has gone into these players and they have responded in spades to us. All we can ask them to do is to listen to us and try and execute the game-plan as effectively as possible and we saw that today. Great credit must go to all the club and school coaches out there who are doing an outstanding job with these players at the moment. These players are extremely busy at the moment between club minors, club u-16’s, schools football and this along with half of the panel facing into state examinations, but they are extremely enthusiastic and their commitment is great. We are playing a tournament in Meath over four successive weekends in July and that will give us a good platform to build upon for the Buncrana Finals.”
Squad and scorers were; Jack Deery (Monaghan Harps), Cian Hand (Ballybay), Ben McDevitt (Scotstown), James McKenna (Truagh Gaels), Gary McCaffrey (Truagh Gaels), Frank Connolly (Toome), Padraig McMahon (Magheracloone 0-1), Ryan O’ Connor (Carrickmacross), Kieran Burns (Kileevan), Conor Leonard (Eire Og 0-1), Fergal Hanratty (Corduff 0-4), Aaron Courtney (Donaghmoyne 1-3), David Garland (Donaghmoyne 1-6), Micheal Bannigan (Aughnamullan 1-5), Shane Monaghan (Ballybay 1-0), Jack Kirk (Magheracloone), Dean Brennan (Clontibret), Dean McDonnell (Clontibret), Colin Lownes (Corduff), Oisin Campbell (Emyvale), Adrian Grew (Scotstown), Ross Lowey (Clontibret), Michael McAlister (Emyvale 0-1), Aaron McNally (Sean McDermotts), Cameron O’ Leary (Aghabog), James Wilson (Toome), Killian Hand (Corduff), Padraig Finnan (Tyholland) and Sean Grant (Sean McDermotts).
