By Shaun Casey

MONAGHAN were 11-points adrift at half time of Sunday’s All-Ireland series opener against Mayo, and while they showed their gutsy never-say-die attitude to cut the deficit back to one-point, manager Gabriel Bannigan ended up rueing their first half showing.

The Farney men opted to play against the wind having won the toss and Mayo made that advantage count as they drilled over six two-pointers during the opening 35 minutes of action.

Having lost the Ulster final two weeks beforehand against Armagh, after extra time having also staged a late rally, Bannigan believes the emotion exhaustion of that particular match played its part.

“I knew it was going to be a challenge and Mayo were going to be bursting at the seams after being so disappointed to lose the game the way they did against Roscommon,” Bannigan said.

“They would have been trying to get us a bit flat after the emotion of the Ulster final. We tried to guard against that as much as we possibly could but it looks like that’s what happened in the first half.

“I can’t put my finger on that because we absolutely did everything in our preparation to try and make sure that that wasn’t the case but that’s what it looked like but they gave me everything there in the second half.”

Half time substitute Bobby McCaul made a tremendous impact, kicking 1-1 and helping to drag the Farney County back into contention, but was unfortunately stretchered off with a knee injury before the finish.

Bannigan also had to start without star man Stephen O’Hanlon, who missed out with a hamstring injury, and Ryan McAnespie also picked up a knock during the early exchanges.

“I’m going to be counting the bodies again because there’s another couple of key men (gone),” Bannigan added. “It’s like déjà vu nearly with what happened in the league with the injuries we’re picking up at the moment.

“That’s tough but we’ll go deep into the squad. One of the silver linings from the National League, with all the injuries that we had, is we did give lads a lot more experience so we’ll go deep into the squad.

“You saw young Max Maguire coming in and in moments in that game he showed his class. He’ll benefit from those minutes and from that experience and hopefully he’ll build on that the next day.

“We’ll keep reaching deep into the squad to find what we can. It’s a great squad, they’re all together, there’s great spirit in the camp and we’ll find men to go out in two weeks’ time.”