Articles in the GAA Category

Monaghan resume their Allianz NFL Division One campaign after a three-week break with a testing trip to Castlebar to face Mayo. by COLM SHALVEY While public opinion of Mayo has been clouded by their failure to get over the line and claim a first All-Ireland SFC title since 1951, the Connacht county have been right up there with the most consistent in the country throughout the last decade. Mayo haven’t been outside Division One of the league since all the way back as far as 1997. They have reached the semi-finals nine ...

Tyrone                 1-10 Monaghan               0-10 By COLM SHALVEY   MONAGHAN’S Under-21 footballers fell just short in last Sunday’s Shamrock Cup Final which was played in difficult conditions in Cremartin. Monaghan trailed for the vast majority of this match and found themselves six points adrift when Mark Bradley slotted home the only goal on 40 minutes, but they kept plugging away and although it wasn’t enough to alter the result, they showed enough to take some positives into next month’s Ulster championship. Cathal McShane, ...

Attention turned from the county’s senior footballers to the hurlers and the U-21s last weekend and the spotlight remains on those two teams this Sunday. by COLM SHALVEY Monaghan’s hurlers began life under Trevor Hilliard on a positive note with a draw against Tyrone in their Allianz National Hurling League Division 3A opener at Healy Park. An away game against last year’s Nicky Rackard winners was a testing opener for the new-look team, but a spirited effort saw Monaghan come from five points down to claim a share of the spoils ...

St Mary’s Park has achieved a somewhat iconic status among GAA venues, not only in Monaghan and Ulster, but right across the entire country, hosting as it did so many important matches. Within Monaghan it has hosted club championship matches including County Finals, it was the venue for many of Monaghan’s home games in the National Football League over the years, it was a popular venue for Ulster Senior Football Championship matches, it hosted provincial finals at Junior level and was also the venue for the first ever inter-County championship match ...

Question marks over the long term future of St Tiernach’s Park in Clones abound. However, the goodwill towards the iconic GAA ground is obvious among all parties responsible for managing it. KEVIN CARNEY reports As disquiet and concern grows over the future of St. Tiarnach’s Park, representatives of the bodies who make up the ground’s management committee have united in declaring that the famed Clones GAA ground can have a future to mirror its past. The members of Clones GAA, Ulster Council and Monaghan County Board who spoke to the Northern Standard this ...

Monaghan fell to a first Allianz National Football League home defeat since 2011 last Sunday, but only after a thriller against Cork in St. Mary’s Park, Castleblayney. by COLM SHALVEY The return of National League action to St. Mary’s Park in the mid-Monaghan town created a lively atmosphere, but the huge local majority in the crowd of over 5,000 couldn’t get their team over the line. Monaghan’s 11-match winning run in home National League games fell by the wayside, but a lesser-known statistic – Cork’s 100% record in February under Brian ...

By Kevin Carney It may be the calm before the storm in terms of this year’s season but the county board’s new ladies PRO is enjoying the relatively slow pace of things right now to settle into the job. Carrick Emmets clubman Ciaran Ward is hardly a ‘wet week’ into the post but he’s confident that he has the tools in his locker to consolidate the good work of previous PROs. “Taking on the job of succeeding Mary Grimes as county PRO wasn’t something that I shied away from after being asked because ...

Cork 2-14 Monaghan 1-16 By JOHN GRAHAM IT was bitterly disappointing for Monaghan as Cork plundered both league points with a point in the final minute of normal time from top scorer Colm O’Neill to give them what at times throughout this contest had looked an unlikely victory at St Mary’s Park, Castleblayney, last Sunday. Monaghan were certainly worth a share of the spoils in this high scoring and at times highly exciting contest that produced 33 scores with Cork playing catch up for most of the 70 odd minutes. They did take the ...

By Kevin Carney To paraphrase Mark Twain, it seems that rumours of the death of Tyrone have been greatly exaggerated. When Monaghan took Mickey Harte’s men apart in round one of the NFL there was a queue of pundits lining up to proclaim that the King is dead, long live the King. But Tyrone’s surprising 1-11 to 1-7 away win over Mayo last weekend in division one of the league has caused a re-think in some quarters. The obituaries have been put on the back-burner for the time being. If Mickey Harte was looking ...

Even a floodlight failure couldn’t distract Monaghan from a high-wattage performance in claiming a second consecutive win over old bete noire Tyrone in last Saturday’s NFL Division One opener. by COLM SHALVEY Monaghan’s tails were up after they had hit three quick points to take the lead and they were on the attack again when the lights went out, resulting in conspiracy theories and jokes filling the void of the half-hour delay. Any Tyrone hopes that Monaghan would be put off their stride were unfounded, however, and the light at the ...