Monaghan 4-20
Antrim 3-06
By JOHN GRAHAM
AS THE winners of the Ulster Minor football league Monaghan went into this Ulster Minor Championship Quarter Final encounter carrying the tag of favourites and on the night they totally vindicated that rating with a scintillating display that simply blew a hapless Antrim away at Pairc Elser last Sunday.
That said though they would not want to get too carried away or become complacent that they are the best around as there were some aspects of this performance that left something to be desired particularly the manner in which they seemed to lose their shape and concentration in the third quarter. In that time they allowed Antrim to plunder three goals which gave the semblance of a contest to the match for a certain time but against better opposition such a fall off in performance could prove fatal later on.
Monaghan got off to a lightning start and were 11 points in front, 2-5, before Antrim mounted their first attack and got into Monaghan’s defensive half for the first time in the 14th minute, then opening their account a minute later.
Normal service though was soon resumed as Monaghan continued to defend well, raided and scored almost at will to the extent that this game was over as a contest by the halfway stage when Monaghan led by all of 14 points. That all changed dramatically though in the opening name minutes off the second-half as Antrim hit them for three goals in the space of five minutes, two by Gareth George and one by Ruairi Scott to throw Antrim a lifeline and make for a situation that might have yielded a closer contest from there to the finish. However that contest failed to materialise as Monaghan regained the initiative with …
