Monaghan U14 Football Development Squad travelled to Sligo with two teams on Saturday to play what was a very competitive challenge against Sligo.

GAME 1

Monaghan got a poor start to the game as Sligo had 1-02 scored in the first 5 minutes with the breeze. After 10 minutes Monaghan managed to get the grips of Sligo and began to control the game. Scores were few for Monaghan in the first half due to a strong breeze. However Monaghan did manage to create scoring oportunities Michael McAllister got Monaghan’s first score from play after fine work from Fergal Hanratty. Pauric Finnan scored the first of Monaghan’s goals for the day to leave Monaghan 2 points behind. Sligo hit back with 3 unanswered points to leave Monaghan with all to do. Monaghan finished the half strong with points from Fergal Hanratty and Sean Grant to leave the half time score Monaghan 1-03 Sligo 1-05. Monaghan started the second half brilliantly with points from Micheal Savage, Lorcan Murray and Fergal Hanratty sent over a free to leave Monaghan ahead by 1 point. Sligo pulled one back but Monaghan stepped it up again and scored a flurry of points from Hanratty, McAllister and Gary McGaffery to leave us up by 4 points. Sligo then started to dominate and scored 2-01 without reply. Monaghan didn’t stop at that and finished strong. A brilliant goal from Michael Bannigan got Monaghan right back into it and points from Lorcan Murray and Fergal Hanratty left the final score Monaghan 2-12 Sligo 2-07

GAME 2

The Second game was probably the better game to watch with some great passages of play. Again Sligo started better and with 10 minutes gone Sligo had 5 points on the scoreboard. Monaghan clawed their way back into the game. Points from the impressive Tyler O Hanlon and Cameron O Leary helped Monaghan get on the score board. Sligo managed to pull 1 point back. Monaghan finished the half strong with Adrian Grew sending over a fine point from a free. And that was followed by points from James Wilson (2) and Cameron O Leary. The first half finished Monaghan 0-06 Sligo 0-06. Monaghan Opened up the scoring in the second half with a great point from Damien Rudden. Sligo pulled one back to levelled it up. Monaghan then stepped it up a gear and had 1-03 scored in 5 minutes. A  goal from Tyler O Hanlon and points from Adrian Grew ( 2) and James Wilson gave Monaghan a 7 point lead going into the last 10minutes. Sligo to their credit hit back with 4 points to narrow the gap to 3 points. Monaghan then rifled home their second goal of the game from the boot of Tyler O Hanlon to keep 6 points between the teams. Sligo hit back with 1-01 to leave for an exciting finish however Monaghan had the final say with a superb point from James Wilson to leave the final score Monaghan 2-11 Sligo 1-11

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