Counihan: Truagh aiming to upset the odds

By Shaun Casey

TRUAGH have proved plenty of people wrong already this year by reaching the Monaghan SFC final and they are where they deserve to be, says joint manager Mark Counihan.

They defeated Carrickmacross and Clontibret in their last two outings to reach the decider but now have to overturn the odds on kingpins Scotstown to claim the Mick Duffy Cup for the first time ever.

“We absolutely felt that the county final was within reach. Nobody outside of our camp would have thought that” said Counihan, who manages the team alongside Kieran Sharkey.

“When you look at the odds that the bookies had us at way back at the start of the year, we were 331 and we’re still 61 or something like that.

“We’ve been proving a lot of people wrong on the journey, but we definitely felt we had the group of players that would be capable of getting to the county final, absolutely.”

Counihan is a Truagh Gaels clubman himself, so guiding his own club to the county final, and being along the line for the biggest day of all, will fill him with pride.

“It’s a great occasion to be involved in and when it is your own club, it’s that extra bit special. This is only our fourth time getting to a county final, so it’s a big day in the calendar for any club and it’s great that we’re part of the big day.”

They last reached the final back in 2021, where they lost out to Scotstown, and the club was disappointed that they didn’t build on the progress made that season.

They do have that county final experience in their changing room, but the team has changed a lot in those intervening five years.

“It’s definitely a positive (having played in a final before) but it’s funny how things have been since that,” the former Monaghan minor boss continued.

“We would have been down to intermediate since the 2021 final and have come back up again, and there’s a lot of new players that wouldn’t have been there five years ago.

“As a club, we would have been disappointed that we didn’t get to build on the 2021 final. We were hit with immigration and lost a few players which interrupted that development process.

“We’ve got a few of these guys back now and an influx of some really good young players coming through as well, so we feel that we’re in a good place to be back competing and hopefully we can sustain that challenge over the next few years.”

The semi-final victory over Clontibret took its toll on the squad, but Counihan is hopeful to have everyone available and fit to play come Sunday afternoon.

“We’re still assessing a few guys, the semi-final win came at a bit of a cost because we have a few heavy knocks from it but we’re hoping that on the day, we’ll arrive full fit and ready to go.”