Nicky Rackard Cup quarter final
May 17, 2013Monaghan v Sligo: Pairc Grattan, Inniskeen: Saturday May 18th @ 3.00pm.
Monaghan have their second outing in this year's Nicky Rackard Cup when they take on Sligo in Inniskeen this Saturday in what is a sudden death situation for both with the losers going out and the winners progressing to the semi-final.
After last weekend's result Monaghan know that they will have to produce a much more effective performance over the entire 70 odd minutes if they are to keep their hurling season alive for at least one more game. Donegal and Tyrone are already through to the semi finals and the winners of Saturday's two quarter-finals will join them there with those semi finals scheduled to be played on Saturday, May 25th. That however is a little further down the road than where Monaghan are at this moment in time, as they seek to recover from last Saturday's defeat at the hands of Tyrone in a game where Monaghan effectively capitulated in the second half. That was one point that team manager Joe Morris made very strongly in the aftermath of last Saturday's game that "a performance of that calibre, particularly our second half performance would not be sufficient next time out" even though they are going up against a Sligo team that suffered a seven points defeat at the hands of Roscommon in their first outing back on May 4th. That said though Sligo will have been working on their game since then and their spies in the crowd in Killyclogher last Saturday will have learned something about Monaghan and the hurling they are playing at the moment. This time out Monaghan just simply have to step up their performance even on their first half display last Saturday which was enough to keep them in touch with Tyrone but the home team last Saturday always had something in reserve. Another aspect of Monaghan's play that Sligo will have noticed last Saturday was that they are relying almost exclusively on Michael McHugh from frees, although the addition of newcomer, Tadgh Campbell to the attack, lent an extra dimension and he can contribute substantially again this time around. It looks like being a close and possibly feisty affair and Sligo have always had a strong finish in them against Monaghan.
PREVIOUS MEETINGS.
This will in fact be the third time that Monaghan and Sligo have met in the Nicky Rackard Cup since the competition was introduced some eight or nine years ago. They met for the first time in 2009 in what was at the time billed as a relegation play-off which Sligo won in Carrick-on-Shannon on a score line of 3-14 to Monaghan's 2-9 but the relegation to the Lory Meagher Cup did not materialise and Monaghan were left in the Rackard Cup ranks, something that drew a fair degree of criticism in the county at the time. Monaghan and Sligo met again the following year, 2010, with Sligo again victorious. The best run Monaghan have had in this competition was in 2011 when they reached the semi-final only to lose to Louth. .
THE RESULTS.
2009 Monaghan 2-9, Sligo 3-14
2010 Monaghan 0-13 Sligo 3-10. Tweet
