By Shaun Casey

“Very few defenders burst onto the scene” was Roy Keane’s joke with a jag on Micah Richards a few years ago, but the former Manchester United captain’s words probably have some truth to them.

For Dylan Byrne however, he can argue that he has “burst onto the scene”. The Magheracloone clubman was called up to the county squad in 2025 following a brilliant club run that saw them compete in the Ulster Intermediate semi-final.

Since making his debut, Byrne has helped Gabriel Bannigan’s men win a Division Two league title, reach an Ulster final and compete in back-to-back All-Ireland quarter-finals.

In the last two years, he has started all 11 of Monaghan championship games and is recognised as one of their go-to man-markers.

So far this summer, he has picked up forwards of the class of Oisin Conaty, Kobe McDonald, Daire Cregg and Brandon Kelly. He’s held all four scoreless in the second half of their encounters, when the game is in the melting pot.

“The boys are great, the backroom team is amazing,” said the tenacious corner back after Monaghan’s win over Westmeath which secured their place in the quarter-finals.

“I went in last year and I didn’t think I’d be in (the starting team) straight away but Andy Moran said to me that there was a great chance to make an impact.

“I put the foot to the floor and now we’re here, back-to-back quarter-finals so hopefully we’ll get to training this week and push on.”

Louth stand between the Farney men and a third All-Ireland semi-final appearance in nine seasons. They were there in 2018 and 2023, but came up short on both occasions, losing out to Tyrone and Dublin respectively.

On their win over Leinster champions Westmeath, Byrne added, “The first half, we kind of got to grips with things in the first ten minutes and then they got the two goals which put us on the back foot.

“I think it was level at half time so we knew we had to gather ourselves and get back to basics. We sorted out what was going wrong, talked about how we could improve in the second half.

“We just controlled the game, got the ball to the right men at the right times. We worked down the clock a bit, every attack we aimed for about three minutes per attack and that was our goal in the second half, to control the game.”