The overriding emotion this morning is utter dejection and disappointment. To put in a performance like that against an inferior side is really reflective of our season overall. Promised much, a few flashes here and there, but overall we never got going and were a muddled mess, where conservative tactics were chosen over playing to our teams strengths. Yesterday's game panned out EXACTLY like Monaghan wanted. A slow, turgid game, where we were brought down to their level. Somehow that was either the plan by the management to match it or they didn't have the ability to change it, when they saw what was happening. The fact that Joe McElroy (not a criticism of him), who has barely seen any game time this season, was chosen ahead of Turbitt, showed the game plan from the start.
I think most of us on here have given McGeeney a fair hearing, have stood up for him, wanted him to succeed, praised him when he's done well and criticised when he hasn't. To be clear, I think he's done a pretty good job all things considered. He's bought us up through divisions, built a very competitive team of players who give absolutely everything and established us as a top eight side. But yesterday was reflective of so many other failures we've witnessed with him in charge. We had a week off to rest and prepare, got the draw most would have wanted, were back in Croke Park where the wide open spaces would suit our younger fresher team, with quality forwards, with the chance of making an All Ireland semi-final there for the taking and that was the best tactical setup they could come up with? That's very damning. I think we all understand why we defend in numbers because we don't have the best one-on-one defenders (compare the number that Jason Foley and Tom O'Sullivan did on McCurry and Canavan in the first game), but regularly dropping the entire team back into our own 45, leaving no one up the field, just summed the whole thing up for me. That's what Monaghan wanted and we gave it to them. We were more concerned about the damage that McCarthy and McConnell would do, than imposing our own qualities on the game. I've said it before on here, but ultimately we just don't have the stuff - whatever that is - that gets us over the line in the big games. It's happened too many times now for it not to be the case. How many times have we seen us throw away leads in the dying embers of a game - it's happened multiple times this season alone, never mind all the seasons gone by.
At the end of normal time, when we were a man up, the team f*cked around with the ball in the centre of the field, with absolutely no attacking intent, almost waiting to get one shot off at the final whistle, only not to get one off at all, was criminal. No doubt there's plenty that happened in the game that McGeeney has no control over, with players over playing the ball, not taking easy scores, taking potshots from ridiculous angles and getting stupid indisciplined yellow cards. To lose in exactly the same way (leading at the end of extra time before giving up a soft score), on penalties, at the exact same stage, is going to be very tough to recover from. Like with the two Brian's over twenty years ago, it might be that McGeeney has put the foundations in place for a successful team, but it might now that a fresh voice and different way of doing things is the thing that gets us over the line in these types of games.
The rest of the year is going to be very long, filled with a sense of another missed opportunity that we are all too familiar with now. The team will go again next year and we'll all be 100% behind them. In what form that takes, only time will tell.
