Articles in the GAA Category

JOHN GRAHAM The pairings, dates, venues and times for the 2020 football Championships in all four provinces as well as the 2020 hurling Championships in Munster and Leinster and the All Ireland Championships in both codes were released last week. Prior to that, there are two rounds of the Allianz Football league to be completed and the latter stages of the hurling leagues in the higher divisions to be also sorted out. Monaghan’s outstanding football league game against Kerry, which was due to have taken place last March, will now ...

No club team would have wanted to face BLUES in Ulster this year John Graham reports Scotstown are back as senior champions of Monaghan, after an absence of just one year following what in the end was a comfortable victory over Ballybay in Clones on Sunday last. Scotstown were playing in their eighth County final in a row and from the previous seven finals, they had won five senior football championship titles between 2013 and 2019, being victorious in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and completing a four in a row in 2018, ...

Emotional scenes as teams make history in the middle of a coronavirus crisis Colm Shalvey reports In a year like no other, Scotstown, Monaghan Harps and Aughnamullen will have some cause to remember at least part of 2020 fondly after lifting county titles in an action-packed weekend that brought a condensed club campaign to an end. Scotstown won their fifth Greenfield Foods SFC title in six years when they pulled away decisively from Ballybay in the second half in Clones on Sunday. Scotstown have held the Indian sign over Ballybay in big ...

Sean McDermotts GFC’s David McEntee recently accepted a Player of the Year award from his club which had a particular and poignant family resonance. David was awarded the 2019 player accolade from the Threemilehouse-based club but could not collect it at the time because he is in employment abroad. Home on holidays in July, he accepted the belated presentation of a trophy which was donated to the club in 2005 in memory of his grandparents and club stalwarts Cormac and Máire McEntee, making the accolade a source of particular pride ...

COLM SHALVEY COMMENTARY In a year like no other, the local club championships have been as keenly contested as ever and a very welcome distraction. They are set to conclude on an actionpacked weekend, as for the first time, the SFC, IFC and JFC Finals all take place over the space of two days. The new championship format for the year has received a largely warm welcome and while many of the games have had to be played behind closed doors, the introduction of live-streaming has brought them to a wider ...

The Government has announced that crowds of 200 people will be allowed to attend matches where the capacity of the stadium is over 5,000. Grounds with a capacity of less than 5,000 may hold matches with an attendance of up to 100 people. The announcement arrived just two days after Monaghan’s county hurling final day but in time for a big weekend in the county, with the SFC, IFC and JFC deciders down …

Colm Shalvey reports The ongoing restrictions have seen the club championships progress in front of sparse crowds, even in the vast spaces of St. Tiarnach’s Park, but the streaming services have at least brought the action to wider audiences. Monaghan GAA TV’s coverage reached 22 countries (as far flung as Australia) last weekend and anyone tuning in to the second semi-finals in the SFC and IFC would have been enthralled by some of the best club championship action seen in the county. Scotstown’s routine win over Carrickmacross (with SFC top scorer ...

COLM SHALVEY The AM Hurleys Senior and Junior Hurling Championship Finals take centre stage (albeit behind closed doors) in Clones this Sunday. The SHC decider features a repeat of last year’s pairing, with Castleblayney once again putting their title on the line against an improving Truagh side. It’s a second consecutive county final appearance for Truagh, who put it up to Blayney for much of the 2019 game in front of a bumper crowd, only for Fergal Rafter and Mark Treanor to hit 1-14 between them and fire the favourites ...

THE NEW NORMAL: Supporters watch from a distance the Monaghan County Senior Football Championship Quarter-Final match between Truagh and Inniskeen at St Marys Park in Castleblaney. © PHILIP FITZPATRICK

JOHN GRAHAM All of the championship matches in the county this weekend will be going out live on Monaghan GAA TV as the County Board have finalised an arrangement with a Galway company to live stream all of the games to compensate for the fact that the games are being played behind closed doors, ostensibly. Aughnamullen star Micheal Bannigan agreed that the championship this year was very different both in format and in the restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic. “Yes, it is something very different but if someone had ...