Monaghan advance as Rossies' season of promise ends with dismal defeat
Monaghan 1-20 Roscommon 0-14
By Kevin Egan
The fire of promise that burned so brightly was ultimately extinguished without a fight.
Monaghan didn’t bring firetrucks and water helicopters to St Tiernach’s Park on Saturday afternoon, but they didn’t need to. Diarmuid Murtagh’s two-pointer at the start of the second half looked like it would set the Rossies on the road to victory, but for the remaining 32 and a half minutes, it was as if Monaghan just put an upturned glass over a candle, and the flame tamely died as a result.
In both scenarios, the lack of oxygen is the fatal blow, and in Clones, it was Rory Beggan’s pinpoint kickouts and Monaghan’s patient and meticulous control of the ball that snuffed out Roscommon’s championship season.
That part of the story will be broken down shortly, but first, the context.
A moderate breeze favoured the Rossies for the second half, and kicking two-pointers into the O’Duffy Terrace end of the ground was off the table. Murtagh’s orange flag made it 1-11 to 0-11, and while not one of the over 10,000 people in the stadium would have said that Roscommon played well up to that point, Monaghan’s dreadful conversion rate in front of the posts left the game wide open, and there to be won.
The home side scored eight times from 24 attempts in the first half, hitting nine wides, dropping several shots short, offering up two blockdowns (including a spectacular diving effort from Brian Stack) and they drew two saves from Conor Carroll.
The worst of these misses were in the first quarter and without ever playing particularly well, Roscommon moved 0-6 to 0-2 clear against the breeze. Diarmuid Murtagh and Daire Cregg kicked some nice points, Dylan Ruane was industrious and he finished one from close range, and the home supporters were getting impatient.
Then Jack McCarron landed a double, man of the match Conor McCarthy started to drive forward from the half-back line to take control of the game, and the game was blown wide open when Andrew Woods sidestepped Caelim Keogh and set up Stephen Mooney for a fine goal, hammered across Carroll and into the bottom left corner of the net.
It was the last play of the half that really illustrated just how flat-footed Roscommon were in this game.
Monaghan had a 45, earned after Carroll blocked out another close-range goal attempt from Mooney. It was assumed that Rory Beggan would float the kick towards goal, but instead the goalkeeper dinked the ball to McCarron, meaning that the score counted double.
The first 150 seconds of the second half was remarkable, as Roscommon won the throw-in, moved the ball around the pitch to probe for the right opening, and eventually got the perfect outcome when they worked possession to Murtagh for a left-footed strike.
After that, it all went horribly wrong, as Mark Dowd’s side meandered to a bloodless defeat that will cement the county’s reputation as a formidable opponent in the spring, a ferocious competitor up against near neighbours in the Connacht championship, but a timid underachiever in the All-Ireland series.
Had they asked serious questions of Monaghan and gone down swinging, it might have been different, but that wasn’t the case. Rory Beggan’s accuracy off the tee is such that he gives his county a wonderful platform of possession, but for Roscommon to succumb to so many routine ‘bunch and break’ restarts that were just chipped into open space, into the path of an onrushing Monaghan runner, was demoralising.
Then when Monaghan got the ball, Roscommon couldn’t get enough pressure on to enforce turnovers, so even in instances where there was no score, chunks of time were taken off the clock with Monaghan consistently holding a lead of anything from three to six points.
McCarthy was at the centre of most of their best play, Dessie Ward strode forward to bring his tally to 0-3, and while no single Monaghan forward ran riot or bested his man in any meaningful way, Roscommon’s supporters were growing increasingly agitated, waiting for a bout or urgency or panic that never came from their players.
Jack Duggan, Cian McKeon and Conor Hand all got on the scoresheet, but in roughly 25 minutes of wind-assisted football, Roscommon scored three points, they didn’t create a single goal chance, and they never found a way to either dominate their own kickout, or to disrupt Beggan’s metronomic restarts.
Enda Smith’s brief cameo appearance left the supporters in no doubt that the abdominal injury that forced him out of the starting team clearly impeded his ability to move, and even when Roscommon were in possession, they continued to stick to the process, playing with unnecessary levels of patience and safety, even when the exact opposite was required.
The electrifying, line-breaking runs from Smith, Darragh Heneghan, Colm Neary and Senan Lambe that were the team’s hallmark all year long were nowhere to be seen, and long before awarded the first scorable free of the game in the closing minutes, there was no doubt that Roscommon were going to be the first team eliminated from the 2026 All-Ireland senior championship.
Monday morning’s championship draw, which handed Monaghan a home tie against Westmeath, would have served only to rub salt in wounds that will take as long to heal as any championship defeat for quite some time.
Man of the match: Rory Beggan’s kickout deliveries put him in the frame and perhaps if Roscommon had asked more questions of the big man in terms of goal attempts, he might have scooped the accolade. Instead, it was impossible to look past Conor McCarthy, who seemed to be at the heart of all Monaghan’s best attacking play.
Canary in the coal mine: Monaghan enjoying purple patches during this game was no surprise, but Roscommon switching off close to half-time, allowing Rory Beggan to chip the ball to Jack McCarron for a two-point score, was a huge warning sign. That lack of sharpness was a precursor to the lack of urgency that was on offer from the Rossies in the second half.
Scorers - Monaghan: J McCarron 0-7 (2tp, 1f); S Mooney 1-1; C McCarthy and D Ward 0-3 each; M Bannigan, M McCarville, O McGorman, A Woods, D Garland and R McAnespie 0-1 each. Roscommon: D Murtagh 0-4 (1tp); D Cregg and D Ruane 0-3 each; D Heneghan, J Duggan, C McKeon and C Hand 0-1 each.
Monaghan - Rory Beggan; Dylan Byrne, Ryan Wylie, Ryan O’Toole; Killian Lavelle, Dessie Ward, Conor McCarthy; Mícheál McCarville, Karl Gallagher; Stephen O'Hanlon, Mícheál Bannigan, Oisín McGorman; Jack McCarron, Andrew Woods, Stephen Mooney. Subs: David Garland for Mooney (53 mins, temp); Max Maguire for McGorman (57); Ryan McAnespie for Woods (66); Darragh McElearney for O’Hanlon (69).
Roscommon - Conor Carroll; Eoin McCormack, Brian Stack, Caelim Keogh; Eoin Ward, Ronan Daly, Senan Lambe; Keith Doyle, Conor Ryan; Dylan Ruane, Daire Cregg, Darragh Heneghan; Robert Heneghan, Diarmuid Murtagh, Colm Neary. Subs: Shane Cunnane for Ryan (temp, 10-24 mins); Jack Duggan for Ryan (45); Shane Cunnane for Doyle (46); Conor Hand for R Heneghan (46); Cian McKeon for Cregg (53); Enda Smith for Keogh (62).
Referee - Paul Faloon (Down).