Monaghan manager Malachy O'Rourke was impressed by the hunger shown in their win over Fermanagh in the McKenna Cup.

The Farney County had to dig deep to grind out the narrow win last weekend, but the work rate of the Monaghan players impressed their manager.

"We would feel there is a good hunger there, but Fermanagh showed good hunger too and every team are ambitious and want to improve, we're no different," O'Rourke stressed to the Fermanagh Herald.

"But it's very early in the year so we'll just take what we can out of the game. There's a lot of positives and an awful lot of stuff that we need to improve on but that's what you expect in the first game of the year."

The sides meet in the championship later in the year, but O'Rourke was adamant that last Sunday's clash will have little bearing on that.

"There'll be plenty of water under the bridge between now and then and the two teams will obviously have a different shape to them. The league will see fellas injured, others showing good form, so it will be a different ball game completely."

Tweet

Most Read Stories