Hughes happy Monaghan hurlers are still in the hunt

WITH two games remaining in the Lory Meagher Cup, Monaghan are still in the shakeup for a two-top finish, which would qualify them for the final, and Arthur Hughes says that’s the target for his side.

The Farney men are at home in round four as they welcome Lancashire to Inniskeen, a side that is bottom of the table and has nothing to play for, before they travel to table toppers Longford in the final round.

Monaghan will probably need results to go their way elsewhere, but they can only do what they can do for now and that’s win their last two games to finish the campaign on six-points.

Monaghan finished inside the top two last season on seven-points, with three wins from five matches, but came up short against eventual winners New York in the semi-final.

“There’s a possibility to get runners-up in the group on six-points and get to the final and we’re one of the teams that can mathematically get six,” said Hughes (pictured), who led Monaghan to Lory Meagher Cup glory in 2023.

“There’s a lot of permutations and if you have a round robin competition, that’s what you want. You want as many teams being competitive as possible in the latter end of the competition. We’ll need a few results to go our way, but truth be told, we don’t need a big shock to go our way. If we keep winning, the other results will probably look after themselves.”

Monaghan’s only victory of the campaign has come on home turf as they beat neighbours Cavan in round two, but that split defeats Leitrim and Warwickshire away from home.

And they picked up a few crucial injuries in their last two outings as well. Conal McHugh picked up a knock against Cavan while Niall Garland was forced off early the last day out.

“Lancashire have nothing to play for, but we still have to do a job,” he added. “We played well against Cavan and then we weren’t good against Warwickshire but hopefully we can play better this weekend at home.

“Some teams can play better when the shackles are off but my way of looking at it is that we have to go and ask them the questions as quickly as possible.

“Do they want to be here; do they have the fire in the belly? We can’t wait until the last five minutes to find out; we want to find out in the first five or ten minutes.

“Then, if we get the upper hand in the early part of the game, it’s about keeping the foot on the throat and that will have to be the way of it.

“That’s what we did against Cavan, but we were nowhere near up to that level against Warwickshire for whatever reason, I can’t put my finger on it at all.

“So, we’ll have to ask questions of ourselves too. Are we just a hot and cold team or can we draw up a line of form in terms of our performances.”