By Shaun Casey

FOR the 13th season on the trot, Scotstown will contest the Monaghan SFC final, and Damien McArdle has been the man climbing the steps and lifting the Mick Duffy Cup on behalf of the An Bhoth club for the last two years.

Of those 12 previous finals, Scotstown have only lost out on three occasions, and they’ll be aiming to continue their winning streak on county final day this weekend when they lock horns with Inniskeen.

The same two sides met in the decider back in 2023, with Scotstown emerging victorious with three points to spare on that occasion. Scotstown also gained the upper hand against John McEntee’s team in last year’s semi-final.

While the big day routine is all too familiar for the players in the Scotstown dressing room, captain McArdle insists that the nerves and stress of the big day are still there, no matter how many times you’ve been there there.

“I suppose you never really get used to them and each county final has its own build up. You feel the exact same nerves as your very first one,” said McArdle, chasing another county title for his team.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing for David McCague’s men in the championship campaign as they stumbled through the group stages, ultimately finishing in third place behind Clontibret and Corduff.

A late Dessie Mone two-pointer earned Clontibret a draw against Scotstown in their opening game while Corduff also finished with a rally to hand Scotstown their first championship defeat since the group stages of the 2023 campaign, when they lost to Inniskeen in round one.

Those setbacks are the type of results that can make or break a season and McArdle believes they have helped Scotstown find their feet once again. He was relieved that those couple of off days came before the business end of the competition.

“We identified in the group stages a few places where we were maybe going wrong. Once we hit the knockout stages of the championship, we’ve been improving and gaining a wee bit of momentum too,” the man-marking corner back continued.

“It’s good to get those setbacks in the group stages, because if we’d have gotten them in the knockout stage, we’d obviously be gone. I suppose that’s the beauty of the group stage format.”

Scotstown did produce the goods when it mattered most however and that was the last day out against old rivals Clontibret at Clones.

They picked up an impressive six-point winning margin to qualify for the showpiece.

Rory Beggan was absolutely incredible on the front foot, and he kicked 0-7 on the day, including a massive two-point effort with the final score of the game. Darragh Murray and Jack McCarron raised first-half green flags in their 2-12 to 1-9 victory.

Despite coming out on top, McArdle, who was named as the Monaghan Club Player of the Year last season, believes his side still have plenty of work to do if they are to defend their title this Sunday afternoon.

“We played okay the last day, we think we played okay anyway! There was lots of stuff for us to analyse and and improve on moving forward and hopefully we’ll have taken a few learnings from that game ahead of Sunday.”

Inniskeen have been familiar foes for Scotstown in the past number of years and when it comes to knockout football, David McCague’s side have proved a step too far for Inniskeen, ending their involvement in the past three seasons.

The two clubs also locked horns back in the 2023 senior championship final and Scotstown edged their way past their opponents, winning with three points to spare that day, but a lot has changed in those short few years.

As McArdle points out, the new playing rules mean that the clash of two years ago won’t really have an impact come this weekend, although he is expecting another “free-flowing” encounter, just as the one they shared in 2023.

“You can’t look by Inniskeen on Sunday, and we need to get our own job done,” McArdle added, “The main priority is Inniskeen this weekend. We played them in the county final two years ago.

“That was under the old rules, and the new rules have definitely changed things, it’s a different game now compared to what it was back then. In saying that, the game two years ago was actually a free-flowing game of football too so hopefully it’ll be the same again this Sunday.”