By Shaun Casey

IT’S two seasons since Monaghan last locked horns with Leitrim. That game finished in a draw and Farney boss Arthur Hughes (pictured) is expecting this weekend’s battle, set for Glennon Brothers Pearse Park, to be just as tight.

That was in the early round of the Lory Meagher Cup and Hughes’ side finished that campaign on the steps of the Hogan Stand. Last Sunday, they picked up their first win of the season, beating Warwickshire.

Now they’re hoping to push on and make it two wins on the trot and that will perhaps ignite a promotion charge in the final few rounds. Monaghan have lost to Louth and Fermanagh in the early rounds of the league.

“Leitrim seem to be in good form,” said Hughes. “It’s maybe hard to look into their last game against Louth because of the weather, it was low scoring. Louth gave us a bit of a trimming so Leitrim can’t be far away, they must be a good, battle-hardened team.

“The last game we had against them was in the Lory Meagher Cup two years ago and we drew with them. If memory serves me right, we were maybe seven or eight points up and we let it slip and had to hang on for a draw.

“We galvanised ourselves after that and there’s never much between us now in fairness. They’ve changed their management now too so maybe they’ve got a bounce from that, and it’ll be interesting to see where we are against them.”

Hughes was delighted to finally get a pair of points on the board after the opening round defeats.

“We actually had a lot of boys missing through injury and whatnot so we just weren’t sure where we would be last week,” he added,

“Probably over the 70s minutes we were the better team, but it took us to the last 10 or 15 minutes before we really pulled away. We put a bit of daylight between us, and it was good to get a few points on the board.

“We played in Clones and maybe with the better pitch and a dryer ball and better conditions, that had a big bearing on things. We’ve played in Truagh and in Enniskillen this year and the two pitches were soft, and they were wet, damp days so last Saturday was a better day and that boded well for better scoring for both teams.”