Hughes: Beggan is the best around

THERE isn’t too much more that can be said about Rory Beggan that we haven’t heard already, but the Scotstown shot-stopper continues to deliver at the highest level. At the minute, he’s one of the most influential footballers in the country.

Think back to his heroics against Derry a number of weeks ago: The midfield catch. The neat foot pass inside that created Mícheál Bannigan’s goal. The huge two-point free to win the game. What other goalkeeper could have done all that in a single game?

Last weekend, he nailed three two-point frees against Westmeath as Monaghan reached the All-Ireland quarter-finals. From his starting tee, Beggan retained 81% of his restarts, losing just four all day.

The 2018 All-Star left the play early with a knock, and Monaghan fans will hope that Gabriel Bannigan’s medical team has wrapped the 34-year-old in cotton wool this week.

Terry Lennon – the man behind the scoreboard

If they are to advance any further in the All-Ireland series, they are going to need Beggan playing at the peak of his powers.

Kieran Hughes has shared a dressing room with Beggan at both club and county level. The pair helped Monaghan to Anglo Celt glory in 2013 and 2015 and created history with Scotstown last year as they ended a 36-year wait for an Ulster Club Championship title.

“The man has been one of the best goalkeepers in the country for the last 10 or 15 years,” Hughes explained. “He’s starting to really reap the rewards of the bit of praise that he’s getting and he deserves every bit of it.

“It’s even just his presence in the goals; it gives confidence to the defenders to go and defend one-on-one when they know that he’s behind them. Then once the ball is dead, you’re fairly confident he’ll get it away and you’ll have primary possession again.

“If you’re an opposition team and you try to press Beggan, you have (Mícheál) Bannigan, (Stephen) O’Hanlon, Conor McCarthy and these boys over the top that can be gone within seconds and can do serious damage.”

He added: “Louth have a lot to look at this week and with Gavin Devlin and Ronan O’Neill there, he would be fairly clued in and he knows loads of these boys and played with some of them so there’s going to be unbelievable tactical battles this weekend.”

Hughes, whose last game for the Farney men was the All-Ireland semi-final of 2023 when they lost out to Dublin, believes Louth will do everything in their power this week to assess Beggan’s fitness.

“Louth will be using everything in their armoury to suss out what the story is with Beggan, and they could have drones or anything over Cloghan this week to see is he operating or what’s going on!” Hughes laughed.

“I remember over the years, people pulling up at the side of Cloghan and peeking over the fence. We had management running up the bank and moving people away.”

While neighbouring counties, with Louth having used Inniskeen as their home venue in recent years, there isn’t a great deal of history between the two teams. Certainly not enough to create any sort of a rivalry.

They have actually met in the last two championships, however, in the group stages of the All-Ireland series. The Wee County have yet to taste victory over Monaghan with a draw their best result in the last five encounters.

Beggan to start as Monaghan aim to take down Louth

Monaghan were six-point victors at Newbridge last season while the sides couldn’t be separated the year before. Splitting those two championship clashes was a Division Two meeting in 2025, which Monaghan also won.

No matter who Monaghan were drawn to face in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, Hughes was going to back his county to get the job done and win the game.

Hughes believes a Monaghan side steeled by a number of vastly experienced players can do enough to get across the line and earn another big day out at Croke Park in two weeks’ time.

“Even if it was Kerry I’d probably still try to back our lads,” the Scotstown clubman continued. “Just watching Monaghan the last couple of weeks, I’ve been seriously impressed with the whole team and the balance.

“The likes of Ryan Wylie and Stephen O’Hanlon deserve serious praise. They weren’t about for the Mayo game, and Ryan wasn’t about for the Ulster final so those two boys coming back into the team is massive.

“They are two seriously experienced players and that’s some boost for the management. Since they’ve come back, it’s just calmed everybody.

“I definitely think Monaghan will win. Hopefully they can build up a lead of maybe five or six points going into that last 15 minutes and they’ll be able to see it out.”