Oriel need scoring power

Monaghan's Dessie Mone's experience was important for the Farney county

THROUGHOUT their championship highs over the past decade, John Paul Mone was a central figure for Monaghan. Now the Clontibret man has to content himself with a spectator role, and one which he says he is still taking time to get used to.

Mone watched the Farney men in action in their quarter-final against Antrim, and admits that he had reservations in the lead-up to the game.

“Obviously I don’t have any direct involvement now, but I’m still close to a lot of the lads and get a fair feeling for how things are going. I was very nervous going into the Antrim game. A lot of things had gone wrong for Monaghan in the league, and the fact that they had gone down I felt made the Antrim game a bit of a lottery.

“I was getting the vibe that the morale was a bit low. Five or ten minutes into the second half and Monaghan found themselves well down and you wondered if they had the heart for it.

“In fairness, the likes of Dessie [Mone], Dick [Clerkin], Eoin [Lennon] and then Tommy [Freeman], the most experienced heads on the team, really stepped it up and turned it around.

“They grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and did what needed to be done to get Monaghan over the line.”

The full story is in the current issue of Gaelic Life, published on Thursday June 21. Buy your copy now in your local newsagent, or you can purchase the online version – for only 90p – by clicking here