A mixing of the generations in Scotstown

DAVID McCague knew what Scotstown were getting with the influx of new players who have energised the Monaghan giants on their way to Ulster’s biggest day with Kilcoo awaiting this weekend.

Tommy Mallen and Max Maguire have added to their attack, the latter becoming a target for a kicking game that gets them from front to back.

Donnchadh Connolly and Sean Óg McIlwain are other debutants this season with injury keeping McIlwain out of contention since the Monaghan group stages. Nicky Sherlock is another.

“I suppose the temptation was there to introduce them last year,” McCague said of their young guns who were still minor last season.

“We wanted to respect their minor campaign. They won the minor championship last year and they qualified for the St Paul’s tournament.”

There was a respect of the tournament in the calendar and McCague knew what they’d bring when called upon. Three words roll off the tongue – freshness, energy and quality.

“There’s a young fella Mark McCaffrey who we’re really excited about,” McCague added.

“I have no doubt Mark McCaffrey would have featured in this championship as well, if he’d have been available.”

McCaffrey, still an u-18, was on the Monaghan u-20 panel. Things have changed. Before Scotstown made their breakthrough in 2013, underage coach Niall McKenna can recall going to Ulster minor games and not seeing any players with ‘An Bhoth’ listed under their names.

“There’s a lot of great work happening in the club and our young players are ambitious,” McCague added.

“They want to play for Scotstown, and they want to play at a high level, so, yeah, it’s really energised everybody.

“Every year there’s a a fresh face or two knocking about and this year’s group have just added a lot of quality to the squad.”

In a group that contains buckets of experience and county medals, McCague isn’t surprised with what the young bucks have brought. He got what he expected.

“I suppose we’ve been watching them grow from when they were eight years of age into the young men that they are.

“That’s another thing I’d like to say, they’re great young fellas. They’ve got good character and good values.

“I’d say the club and representing the club comes very high up on their value set.”

“They haven’t exceeded my expectations at all,” McCague clarified of the question. “They’ve given exactly what we expected and we expect more from them now.”

They’ve been helped by a winning culture in the club and by walking into a dressing room of leaders. Men who’ve led both club and county for years.

Even take Darren Hughes and the timing of his inter-county retirement. He left it until Scotstown’s bye week in the group stages – keeping as much fanfare away as possible from the games that mattered.

McCague was part of that dressing room as a player alongside the older crop, with his career coming to an end without the Ulster medal he craves for his players this week.

He came off the bench in their 2015 decider with Crossmaglen when they could almost touch glory without being able to grab it. Cross pushed on in the extra-time they were lucky to get.

The standards then and now weren’t always there. McCague can recall an era when Friday training sessions were followed by the nightclub culture with the hope of being able to find a gear bag for a game on a Sunday.

“I suppose with any culture, it’s set when people walk into a room, or walk into an organisation, or walk into a team environment,” he said of what makes the foundations of leadership in a team environment.

McCague loves football. As an analyst for TG4, he could watch football morning, noon and night if time permitted it.

Within the realms of Scotstown, their change of culture began in the years before 2013 when they eventually got their hands on the Mick Duffy Cup after too long of a wait for a club their size.

“I think that has been building and growing in Scotstown,” he said. “Great credit has to go to the likes of Donal Morgan and people like that, who around the time of maybe 2011, 2012, weren’t particularly happy with how we were going.”

It was time to properly look in the mirror and ask why they were failing. It was time for honesty. And it was time for change. Fast-forward to now and Morgan is part of McCague’s management team after retiring last season.

“He’s added a huge amount to, I suppose, the experience of those younger players and setting the norms of the culture that exists within the squad,” McCague added.

“We’re very lucky to have people like him within our management team, and have people like him in our club to set that culture.”

Before that, craic came before work and McCague also credits former manager Mattie McGleenan with the change in focus they have embraced since.

“We weren’t really serious about our football,” McCague said of the pre-McGleenan era.

“We weren’t living the lifestyle of winners and that changed. Matt introduced a new regime and high levels of discipline and commitment.

“That really set us on a different path and I give him great credit for that. It wasn’t easy on him at times, and some of us weren’t particularly easy on him at times, in terms of maybe how we responded to him.

“It just showed us a different way of preparing and a different way of living, that has maybe transformed the culture of the senior team that’s paying dividends now.”

A change of culture and an influx of young players with standards to follow brings Scotstown back to their latest Ulster challenge. Since 2015, they were edged out by Gaoth Dobhair after extra-time three years later. Glen were two points to the good in the 2023 decider. All small margins.

It’s a third meeting with Kilcoo in as many seasons. A quarter-final, followed by a semi-final and now it’s title time.

McCague chooses not to pick through the bones too much of the five-goal hell Kilcoo inflicted on them last year.

“The games I’ll be focussing on are the games in 2025, and not the game as it was in 2024 really,” he said, also pointing to the new rule enhancements.

“There are definitely elements that we can learn from, that we can use in our preparation to be better.

“We could reference senior league games this year to be better, we could reference group championship games and knockout games.”