By Shaun Casey

HAVING kicked off their National League campaign in style against Cavan last weekend, Gabriel Bannigan’s Monaghan are aiming to make it two from two when they welcome Westmeath to Clones on Sunday.

The Farney County are well aware of the task they face and Westmeath, managed by former Cavan star Dermot McCabe, were very unlucky not to pick up an opening day win against Louth.

Having witnessed their exploits in the All-Ireland group stages over the last number of years and having rubbed shoulders with Westmeath in a recent challenge game, Bannigan’s side will be under no illusions.

“Westmeath were very unlucky not to get a result against Louth,” said Bannigan. “The Louth lads said they were lucky to get the two points. Westmeath put up a really good performance and we’ll be expecting them to give us a real good test in Clones next Sunday.

“They’ve been operating at a very good level in the championship, and we played them in a challenge game two years ago, in 2023; it was a couple of weeks before championship for both of us and it was a very tight game.

“They’re a well-organised, well-conditioned team. They’ve lost a few players from last year, a few experienced players, fellas like John Heslin and Ronan O’Toole taking a year out, they’re big losses to them or to any county.

“I think Dermot McCabe and the Westmeath management would be very pleased with how their lads responded and they put up a hell of a performance against Louth and came very close to winning it.”

Monaghan, of course, are operating without a number of key men themselves, with Conor McManus’ recent retirement from inter-county action while experienced heads Darren Hughes and Karl O’Connell have yet to return.

Bannigan also has a few injury concerns to contend with as Gary Mohan, Andrew Woods, Joel Wilson, Kieran Duffy and Stephen O’Hanlon all picked up knocks the week leading up to the Cavan encounter.

But Bannigan (below) was pleased with how the team responded and Monaghan had a couple of noteworthy individual performances. Goalkeeper Rory Beggan kicked 0-6 while David Garland and Conor McCarthy both nailed 1-4 in their 2-22 to 0-20 triumph.

“There’ll be two of them definitely out for the next few weeks, but I am hoping that I might get at least one and maybe two of them back for the Westmeath game, but we’ll not know that until later in the week,” Bannigan said of the injuries.

“I was pleased with how the team responded because ‘Mansy’ (McManus), we were kind of thinking we’d be blessed if he did come back and give it another go, so we kind of knew we were probably going to be losing him.

“I was really pleased with how the team responded, and that included a few debutants. Three lads who made their debuts from the start and two of the subs who brought on, it was their first appearance in a man in senior jersey as well, so I’m very pleased with