As our match against Monaghan fast approaches & I can think of little else
my overriding feeling apart from "please god let us win" is that we HAVE to push up on the kick out from the very start. If we allow Beggan to kick out short to an unmarked player we are only creating problems for ourselves further up the field, we are bringing on the opportunity to foul or at the very least be seen to have fouled, depending on the referees interpretation of the tackle & frees will not doubt be awarded. If we give away frees from the 45 or closer we are going to be punished on the scoreboard by Beggan or McManus. If Beggan is forced to kick long we at least have a chance to contest it & it is 50/50 ball, we can't give him the option to find his man with ease.
We played Monaghan in the McKenna Cup in January & anyone who was there that night will remember how in the 1st half Monaghan were able to take the ball from a short kick out & leisurely make progress up the field until they entered our half, they then employed a quick turn of pace running at us to either create scores or win frees, we looked out of our depth. We had plenty of bodies back in defence but seemed to be standing off the opposition & giving them the time & space to pick the right pass or shot. We were lucky to go in only 3 points down at half time. However in the 2nd half we pushed up on the kick out & lo & behold it started to pay dividends, we showed more intensity in the 1st few minutes of the 2nd half than we had during the entire 1st half. Monaghan were no longer able to build an attack at their leisure & for every score they got we were able to answer with one of our own, with Soupy eventually firing over the winner. This 2nd half performance is what we need tomorrow night if we are to have any chance of progressing in the qualifiers.
Having watched the Monaghan v Fermanagh match in Clones I would say that this Monaghan team are beatable, if Fermanagh had a couple of natural forwards they could have beaten them, even without that if Quigley had scored the penalty they might still have beaten them! I am really hoping this is the match in which we click, we have had patches during our Season to date which has shown the potential we possess but small things just seem to let us down & luck rarely appears to be on our side
Hopefully tomorrow will see this pattern change & we get a win which would be a huge boost to the confidence & morale of this squad & would definitely put a smile on this supporter's face
One thing I can be certain of, every player who sets foot on the pitch tomorrow night will give his all in a bid to see us in the draw for the next round of the qualifiers.