Mícheál Bannigan hoping to crown a strong league

By Shaun Casey

Monaghan captain Mícheál Bannigan says his side are focused on delivering a performance in the Division Two league final this weekend as the preparations begin to intense ahead of the Ulster Championship.

The Farney County face Roscommon in the decider, with both sides making a swift return to the top tier following their relegation last season. Monaghan topped the Division Two table with ten-point while Roscommon finished just below that on nine.

The Rossies came out on top when these two teams locked horns in the league, winning by five-points in round three. Bannigan believes Monaghan didn’t perform to their best that day in King & Moffatt Dr Hyde Park, but they are keen to right those wrongs.

“We probably wouldn’t be happy with our performance down there,” said Bannigan. “We gave away four or five infringements of the rules which you can’t afford to with the punishments and then our general performance just wasn’t great.

“We can hopefully get one back but we’re probably just looking for a performance again this weekend. It’s great preparation ahead of the championship so that’s what we’re aiming for this weekend.”

Monaghan’s main objective at the start of the season was to return to the top-flight at the first time of asking, having spent the last decade dining at the top table. Finishing in one of the two promotion spots was top of their to-do list.

“At the start of the year, obviously the aim would have been to get back up to Division One and a league final comes with that,” added the Aughnamullen clubman. “We were probably in a lucky position that not too many of us had experienced a Division Two league campaign.

“It was all new to us but we found it really enjoyable, under the new rules as well so we’re really happy with our work to date. It’s a really even league and there was a real threat from each team, every team has serious players.

“Especially under the new rules as well, you couldn’t even look into what they had done previously so every game that we played, there wasn’t really much between any of the teams.”

With championship just around the corner, it won’t be long until Monaghan turn all their focus towards the business end of the season but Bannigan says they want to finish off the league before they concentrate on championship football.

Monaghan await the preliminary round winners, so they will face either Donegal or Derry in the first round of the Ulster Championship. “We’re still in the league campaign,” Bannigan explained when asked about the championship.

“We still have our league final to go through, so we definitely have all our eggs in that basket at the moment. That probably helps since we have to wait on the winners of the preliminary round anyway.

“We can’t really turn our focus towards the championship just yet so we’ll look after our business this weekend hopefully and then we’ll see who we face in the first round. I think there’s four or five, maybe six teams that can win Ulster.

“We’re all thinking the same thing in Ulster, that if we can get on a run that we can go ahead and win it. It’s really even so we’re looking forward to see what happens.”

With Conor McManus hanging up the boots before the season got underway, many may have felt that Monaghan could struggle in front of the posts but as the league has shown, nothing could be further from the truth.

Across all four divisions in the league, nobody put up a bigger overall scoring tally than Gabriel Bannigan’s charges and they have the firepower to compete with any of the top teams in the country.

Bannigan himself has been showcasing his accuracy in front of the posts while Conor McCarthy, Stephen O’Hanlon, Jack McCarron and shot stopper Rory Beggan have all be scoring freely as well.

“They are probably impossible shoes to fill,” added Bannigan of McManus’ retirement. “With the new rules, it has definitely helped us because we’re getting two points for one compared to what he would have got.

“If you look back at where he got his scores from over the years, I’d say the majority of them were two-pointers so we’re getting two for one compared to what his scores were and we probably still won’t catch him!”