By Niall Gartland

CLONTIBRET were conspicuous by their absence from the knock-out rounds of last year’s championship, so manager John McEntee is delighted that they’re back in business after successfully qualifying from their group.

Finishing third in their five-team group means that they’ve advanced to a quarter-final clash against Truagh this weekend, so Clontibret are now three games away from winning their second title in three years.

Easier said that done with the likes of Scotstown knocking about, obviously, but Armagh legend McEntee is just happy to be in this position.

“We missed out last year. In actual fact we’ve had quite a competitive group this time around and in many ways we’re very fortunate to be in the knock-out stages, but yes, we’re absolutely delighted to be here.”

Pascal Canavan’s Truagh stand in the way of a place in the championship semi-finals. McEntee says that they’ve always been sticky opposition for Clontibret.

“Truagh have always caused us a lot of trouble, they’ve a lot of excellent players. Gary Mohan is with the county, he’s a very talented forward, very quick.

“They have the basics covered, they’re big and they’re strong, and they’re possibly a lot better organised than they have been in the past.

“We’ve always struggled to beat them so it’s going to be challenging for us, but we’re happy to be here and we’re hoping to do our best on the day.”

While Clontibret rang the changes as they lost their final group stage match by 2-14 to 3-16 to Latton, McEntee was still disappointed that they didn’t pick up a win, even though qualification had already been assured.

“A lot of people said that it was a dead rubber but it wasn’t for us. We tried to win that game. It just so happened that Latton got off to a great start and got a couple of goals. Latton’s a good side with a lot of U-20 players to complement the senior players that have been there. They’ll give anybody trouble.

“I wouldn’t have thought it was a dead rubber but maybe some players looked at it that way. From our perspective we wanted to win the game and finish second, to show that we’re capable of it.”

Of the ten teams who fielded in the senior championship, Clontibret finished the group stages with the best scoring record, averaging just over 20 points a game. That’s possibly no surprise given they have forwards like Conor McManus lining out for them, but McEntee says that statistics can be misleading.

“That surprises me, I didn’t think that’d be the case because we also probably have the highest number of shots wide in the competition.

“But you know what, a lot of those things don’t really matter as you could have a game where you kick two or three goals against a weaker team and then don’t perform so well against some of the better teams. The for and against stats are artificial in many ways.”

Unlike last year, there’s been a league competition in Monaghan, and McEntee says the county board couldn’t have done any better with the fixtures.

“I have to say credit to the Monaghan County Board, they’ve done a really good job with the league and championship structure this year.

“Last year the championship structure was very effective and this year the same applies, they’ve allowed the league group stages to complete before the championship and the semi-finals are later on in the year, it means that teams can now concentrate on the championship and put their best foot forward, it’s a very good structure and i’m very happy with it I have to say.”

IN THE MIX…John McEntee is glad his side have progressed to the knock out rounds of the Monaghan Championship