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Irish Examiner
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Stung Monaghan take out their frustrations on off-key Louth
All-Ireland SFC Group 4: Louth 4-08 Monaghan 1-23 Fired-up Monaghan put Louth to the sword in Newbridge with a resounding opening Group 4 victory over their successful neighbours. A result and scoreline that might make people take notice nationally could have been more only for Louth's gritty knack at getting goals. While Louth spent the past few weeks lifting silverware and charming the nation, neighbours Monaghan were brooding. Their April defeat to Donegal leaving a sting that hadn't quite faded. The fact that Jim McGuinness' men went on to seize the Anglo Celt only deepened Monaghan's hunger and fastened people's thoughts on the Farney men being Sam Maguire contenders. From the outset, Louth, like the league contest in Drogheda, were hit with the full force of that fury. Already overawed, being forced into changes down the centre of their defence did not help preparations. Full back Dermot Campbell and Peter Lynch at centre back were both deemed unfit to play. Monaghan sensed this and forward Stephen O'Hanlon lit the touch paper as early as the second minute with a rebounded shot to the net. An off colour Louth side never quite got to the pitch of the game despite levelling twice. Yet the Reds were never completely out of the rollicking encounter either. Ger Brennan's men have a nose for goal and even in retreat they carried that counter-attacking weapon with menace. Captain Sam Mulroy struck for one, Tommy Durnin followed with another, and somehow, Louth trailed by just three at the break, 1-11 to 2-3, despite being second best in most departments. However Monaghan were unrelenting in between those majors. They thundered out after the interval, reeling off four quick-fire points. Stephen Mooney and Dessie Ward topped up with their third points of the day. Still, Louth refused to roll over. Champions don't go quietly. Mulroy, despite his struggles from placed balls, buried a penalty that offered a lifeline. Micheál Bannigan however was in no mood for a dramatic comeback. The centre forward bookmarked a seven-point winning run. As tempers frayed and black cards were flashed to Donal McKenny and Killian Lavelle, the game lost shape, but not its outcome. Even Durnin's late goal was only a footnote, the day, the statement, and the spoils belonged entirely to Monaghan. Scorers for Louth: Sam Mulroy 2-2 (1f, 1-0 pen), Tommy Durnin 2-0, Ryan Burns 0-5 (1f, 2tp), Ciaran Byrne 0-1. Scorers for Monaghan: Stephen O'Hanlon 1-3, Micheál Bannigan 0-6 (1tp 1f), Rory Beggan 0-4 (2tpf), Dessie Ward 0-3, Stephen Mooney 0-3, Jack McCarron 0-2 (1f), Conor McCarthy 0-1 and Kieran Duffy 0-1. Louth: Niall McDonnell; Dan Corcoran, Emmett Carolan, Donal McKenny; Conall McKeever, Daire Nally, Craig Lennon; Bevan Duffy, Tommy Durnin, Ciaran Downey, Sam Mulroy, Conor Grimes; Ciaran Keenan, Kieran McArdle, Ryan Burns. Subs: Ciaran Byrne for Downey (ht), Dara McDonnell for McArdle (ht), Liam Jackson for Corcoran (40), Andy McDonnell for Duffy (42), Conor Branigan for A McDonnell (55). Monaghan: Rory Beggan; Ryan Wylie, Killian Lavelle, Dylan Byrne; Dessie Ward, Ryan O'Toole, Kieran Duffy,; Mícheál McCarville, Gary Mohan; Ryan McAnespie, Stephen O'Hanlon, Conor McCarthy; Micheál Bannigan, Andrew Woods, Stephen Mooney. Subs: Cian Mulligan for Beggan (Blood 26-28), Jack McCarron for McAnespie (45),Ciaran McNulty for Woods (49), Davy Garland for Mooney (59), Darren Hughes for McCarville (64), Karl O'Connell for Ward (69), Jason Irwin for O'Hanlon (70).
RTÉ News
24-05-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Louth brought back down to earth by impressive Monaghan in All-Ireland group opener
Monaghan came away from Newbridge with an emphatic opening Group 4 win over neighbours Louth, with six points between the sides at the finish. The margin flattered the off-colour Leinster champions on a day the Farney were hell bent on taking all the local bragging rights. While Louth were collecting silverware and the nation's hearts, Monaghan were stewing over a narrow loss to Donegal in April. With the Tir Conaill men capturing the Anglo Celt further fuelling Monghan's burning ambition to get back out on the field. Louth would feel all that wrath as Monaghan started both halves with gusto and laid the foundations for their win as well as laying down a marker in the All-Ireland race. Impressive Stephen O'Hanlon had the ball in the back of the net as early as the second minute and jaded Louth could never put themselves in a position to win the contest. Despite being outplayed at times, Ger Brennan's side were never fully out of this rip-roaring contest either. His men side possess a knack of getting goals and that helpful trait had the de-facto hosts only three points down at the break, 1-11 to 2-03. Captain Sam Mulroy found the net and then his creator ,Tommy Durnin, also raised the green flag but Monaghan's dominance was seen in a 0-06 to 0-00 run. Farney captain Micheál Bannigan hugely imposing himself on the game. Upon the resumption, the visitors again began like a train with four quick points that made Louth supporters' heads look towards the next round. Ballybay's Dessie Ward curled over his third point that highlighted Monaghan's intent. However, the confidence that made Louth champions meant they would not go away. Despite Sam Mulroy's waywardness from frees he dusted himself down to nail a vital penalty. A lifeline for Louth. Such was Louth's day, they could never quite build on their moments of class. Bannigan nailed the response and instigated a seven-point scoring run to close out the game. With a couple of black cards to defenders Donal McKenny and Killian Lavelle, the game got ragged but Monaghan marched on in spite of Durnin's late goal. Louth: Niall McDonnell; Dan Corcoran, Emmett Carolan, Donal McKenny; Conall McKeever, Daire Nally, Craig Lennon; Bevan Duffy, Tommy Durnin (2-00), Ciaran Downey, Sam Mulroy (2-02, 1-00pen, 0-01f), Conor Grimes; Ciaran Keenan, Kieran McArdle, Ryan Burns (0-05, 2tp, 0-01f). Subs: Ciaran Byrne (0-01) for Downey (ht), Dara McDonnell for McArdle (ht), Liam Jackson for Corcoran (40), Andy McDonnell for Duffy (42), Conor Branigan for A McDonnell (55). Monaghan: Rory Beggan (0-04, 2tpf); Ryan Wylie, Killian Lavelle, Dylan Byrne; Dessie Ward (0-03), Ryan O'Toole, Kieran Duffy (0-01); Mícheál McCarville, Gary Mohan; Ryan McAnespie, Stephen O'Hanlon (1-03), Conor McCarthy (0-01); Micheál Bannigan (0-6, 1tp 1f), Andrew Woods, Stephen Mooney (0-03). Subs: Cian Mulligan for Beggan (Blood 26-28), Jack McCarron (0-02, 0-01f), for McAnespie (45),Ciaran McNulty for Woods (49), Davy Garland for Mooney (59), Darren Hughes for McCarville (64), Karl O'Connell for Ward (69), Jason Irwin for O'Hanlon (70).
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Meyler to make Tyrone return against Donegal
Conor Meyler will return to the Tyrone side for the first time since 2023 when the Red Hands begin their All-Ireland series against Donegal in Ballybofey on Saturday night. The 2021 All-Ireland winner missed the entirety of the 2024 campaign after a pair of knee surgeries and an Achilles injury but will make his intercounty return from the bench against the Ulster champions (19:00 BST). In what is the first game for Tyrone since Cathal McShane stepped away from the panel, Malachy O'Rourke is also able to name Mattie Donnelly in his starting side, the two-time All Star coming in for Joe Oguz. Aidan Clarke is named to start, as is Peter Harte with Ruairi Canavan dropping to the bench, although that was the case for the Ulster semi-final defeat by Armagh before their roles were swapped before kick-off. Donegal, meanwhile, have named an unchanged starting side. Jim McGuinness' squad secured a second consecutive Anglo Celt with an extra-time victory over Armagh in Clones two weeks ago and the two-time All-Ireland champions' named side shows just one positional switch. After starting at half-forward in the provincial decider, Hugh McFadden drops back into midfield, switching places with Ciaran Thompson. Donegal: Shaun Patton; Finbarr Roarty, Brendan McCole, Peadar Mogan; Ryan McHugh, Caolan McGonagle, Ciaran Moore; Hugh McFadden, Michael Langan; Daire O Baoill, Ciaran Thompson, Shane O'Donnell; Patrick McBrearty, Michael Murphy, Oisin Gallen. Subs: Gavin Mulreany, Stephen McMenamin, Odhran McFadden Ferry, Caolan McColgan, Eoghan Ban Gallagher, Odhran Doherty, Aaron Doherty, Eoin McHugh, Jamie Brennan, Conor O'Donnell, Niall O'Donnell. Tyrone: Niall Morgan; Aidan Clarke, Peter Teague, Niall Devlin; Michael McKernan, Rory Brennan, Kieran McGeary; Brian Kennedy, Conn Kilpatrick; Aodhan Donaghy, Mattie Donnelly, Ciaran Daly; Darren McCurry, Peter Harte, Darragh Canavan. Subs: Oisin O'Kane, Cormac Quinn, Padraig Hampsey, Frank Burns, Ben McDonnell, Shea O'Hare, Conor Meyler, Mark Bradley, Seanie O'Donnell, Ruairi Canavan, Eoin McElholm.
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
A tough duel but Cavan find a different way to slay that badger
On the week that Cavan last beat Mayo in the championship, a man from Gowna fought a badger. I'm serious – it even made the Anglo-Celt newspaper. 'Mr John Cullen, Pottle, Gowna, had a rather exciting experience with a badger, which he attacked with a hayfork, the animal retaliating viciously,' the report read. 'After a hard fight for over half an hour, Mr Cullen, fearing the worst, called on his son to bring him a gun, with which he shot the badger. 'Mr Cullen says it was the toughest duel he ever had.' The newspaper was dated September 25th, 1948. Cavan beat Mayo in the All-Ireland final on September 26th – and not again until last Sunday, May 18th, 2025 . READ MORE Now, Cullen v the Badger (what would Don King have called this? Death in the Sett? Full Throttle in Pottle?) prompts some questions, the obvious one being why the bold Cullen waited so long to change his tactical approach. The badger, perhaps working behind the jab, cutting off the ring, clearly had the upper hand – but why did his, presumably, two-legged foe leave it until he was 'fearing the worst' before doing what he surely should have done in the first place? I like to think that coming from Gowna, maybe he was a football man, which would make sense because, down through all the years and all the cursed days, Cavan teams have never made things easy on themselves, either. A few weeks back in Omagh, for the umpteenth time, they reached a crossroads, saw the sign for Gung Ho and took the other road . Let's be honest, it was hard to see the way back and the supporters reacted accordingly; a vanishingly small crowd made the trip to MacHale Park. 'That cliche about travelling in hope rather than expectation would have been true had they travelled at all,' wrote Conor McKeon, damningly, in Monday's Irish Independent. 'The Cavan players loitered in the middle of the pitch and drank in the sun with the few family and supporters who had made it. It looked more like a weekend neighbourhood summer soirée than a raucous celebration for a landmark championship win.' [ Ponderous Mayo find out how dangerous it is to overthink their gameplan in the new-rules era Opens in new window ] 'Landmark' was an apt word though, because wherever this team's journey takes them, this game will be referenced − the day Cavan took a championship scalp really worth taking. Should Cavan go on to do something special, Castlebar will be the day it started. Should they not, Castlebar will be the day it ended. Either way, it's a day that will be referenced for years to come. Yes, Mayo were poor but that's by the by. This was a win against a recognised top team, a win Ray Galligan admitted last week his team were desperately seeking to 'change the landscape of how they're viewed'. They did that; they earned respect. There was a moment towards the end of the match which summed up Cavan's approach, when Mayo's dashing forward, Ryan O'Donoghue, was clattered by a bone-shaking, fair challenge from Killian 'The Gunner' Brady. Reeling, the brilliant Belmullet man, who had been haunted by Niall Carolan all day, offloaded the ball instantly but his thoughts were clearly scrambled. The team-mate O'Donoghue thought was there, was not; maybe, it was an apparition of sorts, induced by a heavy hit. The unfortunate O'Donoghue's handpass went straight to a Cavan man and they raced up the field and scored. It was unusual to see a pass go so wildly astray at that level of football but then, everything about this match was; it just felt like that kind of day, a day when ghosts were banished. (Centrefield in 1948, incidentally, was a forebear of Brady's, Phil 'The Gunner', cut, they say, from the same cloth.) Paddy Durcan of Mayo and Cavan's Dara McVeety get to grips with each other during Sunday's match at MacHale Park. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho Seventy-seven years is a long time. The people were different back then, closer to the land maybe (a man might, I don't know, find himself fighting a badger of an evening, for example). 'A kite flying high over the pitch was decked out with the Mayo colours while a rabbit in the same garb was released shortly before the start,' the report on these pages of the 1948 final recorded matter-of-factly, as if this wasn't the daftest carry-on imaginable. 'After nibbling at the grass, it seemed stage struck and was picked up by a steward. Then out dashed a hare dressed in blue for Cavan. It ran round briskly whilst the crowd cheered. It, too, was picked up and the parade started.' A crowd of 75,000 attended that game, with a reported 25,000 unable to gain admittance. 'The crowd were so dense – a swaying mass of humanity – that the situation was positively dangerous for old or delicate individuals. Many people fainted...' the report reckoned. In the Market Square on the Tuesday after the final, Cavan chairman Patsy Lynch spoke to the masses. 'In the victory celebrations tonight, we should not let the opportunity pass without mentioning our traditional friends, the Gaels of Mayo,' he proclaimed. 'At any time that a Cavan team appeared in Mayo, they were accorded a great reception and they counted them among their greatest friends.' And it's true, there is an affinity between the counties, more so than others a similar distance away. Why that is, I don't know. Maybe the common kinship is built on a latent recognition that well, if you're in this, get out of it while you can or otherwise, it's going to hurt. It's when you least expect it, though, that both teams can surprise you. Witness Mayo scoring own goals and missing penalties in All-Ireland finals, beating the greatest team of all time and losing next day out; remember Cavan winning the Ulster Championship a month after being relegated to Division 3 – and then going to Division 4 before the ribbons had been cut from the cup. All of this is in the last five years alone. So, I headed west torn between dangerously unfounded optimism in the heart and a faint sense of dread in the head. I gave a lift to two young women of my acquaintance and on the drive, football wasn't mentioned, not once – and having covered this same fixture last year and the recent one in Healy Park, I must say I was quite happy about that state of affairs. [ Conor McManus: The West's a wake but it's resurrection time for Dublin Opens in new window ] We reached Castlebar and my passengers disembarked, laden with camping gear, heading further west still to Achill. I considered joining them and rued that I couldn't. To the stadium, a couple of familiar faces outside but not many. 'Big ask, now,' muttered one Cavanman who knows his football better than most, better than me, anyway. Into the lift, up to the press box. 'Any chance?' asked one wizened scribe. 'I wouldn't back us,' I admitted, secretly still hoping we would give it a good rattle but too cowardly to say it aloud in front of the grown-ups. And early on, yes, it was clear there was something different about Cavan – they were up for this one. But bodies started to fall and men looked leggy and when Mayo went in at half-time three points up, without having done anything really of note, you knew, just knew, it was going to be one of those days. And then, like the man from Pottle, God rest him, Cavan said, to hell with this messing around, sent for the shotgun and blasted all before them. A 'rather exciting experience', indeed. On the way home, I stopped in O'Connor's of Tulsk, a shop and pub along the roadside. The sun was setting but there was still a warmth in the air. My phone hadn't stopped ringing and I found myself giddy. Across the shop counter, the bar was hopping; I heard a man say 'some win for Cavan' and for the second time in a few hours, I thought of abandoning all plans and joining in. But I had reports to write, more's the pity, of discarded pitchforks and slain badgers and famous wins and generations of the same family, 77 years apart, in the same colours, fighting the same fight. That's the beauty of it and that's why, despite it all, we love it. On I went. Paul Fitzpatrick is the sports editor of the Anglo-Celt newspaper, where this column originally appeared as the weekly Cavanman's Diary
RTÉ News
09-05-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Donegal and Armagh ignoring peaks and troughs
Preordained but no less important – familiar foes Armagh and Donegal will battle it out for supremacy in the Ulster Ladies SFC final at Clones on Saturday afternoon and it still means everything. As the only two teams in the competition, as has been the case in recent times, this decider was penned in before a ball was even kicked in anger, but that does ensure the latest instalment in what has been quite a storied rivalry. So often clashes occur when one team is in a peak and the other in a trough, and that again will be the case with the Orchard County coming off the back of a Division 1 final defeat to Kerry while Donegal, managed by former Armagh boss James Daly, were unable to make it out of Division 2. Armagh carry strong favouritism into St Tiernach's Park, but that was the case in 2023 when they were expected to sweep to a fourth title in a row but were thwarted in Owenbeg. It was also the case last year when Armagh needed extra-time to come out on top, so you can take Blaithin Mackin's word when she says they're taking nothing for granted. "Any final you're in you want to win and obviously Ulster's massive. I know in my first four or five years we went to Ulster finals and we were getting beat by 20, 30 points so this group doesn't take it for granted how hard Ulster is to win. "We know last year it was really tough, and the year before we obviously got beat by Donegal, so yeah we don't take Ulster for granted but again, to do it in front of hopefully a big crowd would be even better, and I'm sure both teams are thinking that." For Tir Chonaill breakout defender Abigail Temple Asokuh, who has excelled in her three seasons on the panel, their performances in recent finals gives them hope ahead for the undercard of a double-header between the two counties with the men's teams to meet for the Anglo Celt directly after. "I think last year we showed them that we could keep up with them. "There's definitely a big rivalry there. Even before I came in, it's always been like that, which is great. Great competition and two great teams and with the All-Stars involved." Both players are prioritising Gaelic football right now but have huge talent in other sports. Temple Asokuh is a fine soccer player, no surprise when you consider her father Eloka 'Luca' Asokuh has an Under-17 World Cup winning medal to his name having helped Nigeria claim the crown in 1993 with the team spearheaded by a certain Nwankwo Kanu. Mackin also has enjoyed prominence away from the Gaelic field having played a key role as Melbourne claimed the 2022 AFLW Grand Final. When Armagh's season ends, and the player hopes that will be a while away yet, she will return to Australia. "I'm very lucky all of my ones have made the trip over, it's a really nice place, the people are very good to me over there, the Australians, but yeah when your family's not there - once the family are over it's really good, but you're a long way from home so that's the only tricky side to it. "The professional sporting athlete, whatever you want to call it, that lifestyle is really nice and you just get so much time to look after your body and look after yourself and prepare for the next training session, prepare for the next game whereas obviously at home you're working half nine the next day." Mackin will be one of four siblings chasing Ulster medals this weekend, with brother Connaire a key player for Kieran McGeeney's side, although injury rules out Aimee and Ciaran. Whatever the outcome, this Ulster rivalry is set for another significant chapter – especially with the closing stages likely to be played out in front of nearly 30,000 people. "It's going to be great to have the two games in one day at Clones, but it's a matter of the people wanting to go and watch these ladies," added Temple Asokuh. "We are just as good. We have amazing players across the whole country and some are probably better than some of the men to be honest. It's just a case of getting people out to these games and showing them how good we are."
