ANYONE FOR A MORAL VICTORY?

KEVIN CARNEY

Years ago when short pants were de rigeur and on a wet day the weight of the match ball was multiplied 10-fold by the time the dust had settled on the game, the catchphrase of your commoner-garden trainer (there were no coaches back then) was to make sure “your last lap was your fastest”.

Monaghan did just that in Omagh last weekend but it wasn’t enough to pip quick-out-of-the traps Tyrone.
Of course, Monaghan made the race doubly hard to win by tying a sock around their ankles with the dismissal of two of their number which meant that Tyrone had a lot more wriggle room than they ought to have had for the final half-hour of the match in Healy Park.

Monaghan were like the fancied miler who let …