Darren Hughes of Monaghan during a Media Event in advance of the Allianz Football League Division 1 Round 4 match between Monaghan and Mayo on Sunday at St. Tiernach's Park in Clones, Co Monaghan.
By John Harrington
Darren Hughes is playing his 15th season of inter-county football and turns 33 on Friday, but you’d never guess it.
Two weeks ago against Dublin he charged all over the pitch with his usual bristling athleticism and lust for battle.
The years haven’t dulled his edge at all. If anything, his appetite for football is all the keener because he feels like he’s making up for lost time.
The 2019 championship was a write-off because of an injury he suffered on the club-beat with Scotstown in April that saw him break his ankle and tear ankle and knee ligaments.
Watching from the sidelines was all the more frustrating because of the uncharacteristically meek manner in which Monaghan exited the Ulster and All-Ireland Championships.
So, when you ask Hughes had he any doubts about coming back in 2020 for another year of inter-county action, his answer is swift and definite.
“The way the injury worked out I had four months off and was mad eager to get back,” he said.
“Banty rang us and there was no retirement talk or anything like that there. It was, 'When are we getting back and what's the plan?', sort of a thing.
“Maybe there was an element of doubt whether I'd be able to reach the levels of fitness that I was at before.
“But, thankfully now, the injury, as nasty as it was at the time and the damage that was done, it did heal. I've no issues with it now at all, but it did take four to five months to overcome it.
“When I went back to pre-season you do doubt yourself, but eventually you do get back up to the level of playing inter-county midfield. I had a good pre-season behind me and it's all going well so far.
“I've not long left, so I'm enjoying every game as it comes. The whole thing is freshened up this year after a disappointing year last year when we won just three games, two League and one championship.
“As a group we were disappointed in ourselves, with our application and different things, because in 2019 we were hoping to be building on 2018 and ultimately we didn't.
“We let ourselves, our management, and our supporters down and it's just about trying to get our best back out of us again and pushing on this year.”
Darren Hughes of Monaghan in action against Michael Fitzsimons of Dublin during the Allianz Football League Division 1 Round 3 match between Dublin and Monaghan at Croke Park in Dublin.
It’s definitely a bone of contention for the Monaghan players that Malachy O’Rourke’s seven-year reign as manager ended with the whimper it did in 2019.
He had led them to two Ulster titles as well as the All-Ireland semi-final in 2018 and as a collective they couldn’t have held him in higher esteem. By the high standards the group had set for itself under his watch, 2019 represented a serious dip in form.
“There's no doubt it was disappointing,” says Hughes. “We had seven years of Malachy and he's probably the best manager that I ever worked under and probably ever will. If anyone's going to be better than him then he'd be a damn good manager.
“Last year it was just as if no matter what we tried it didn't work. You'd go back to training after a defeat or poor result and try to iron out the creases and see where the problems were and say, 'Right, the next day will kick-start our season'. But we just never got going.
“If there was one thing that was the issue you could iron out that problem. But it was just an accumulation of injuries, suspensions, things not going to plan, just poor results.
“We just never got that kick-start to really get things going and then next thing that was it, season over in the middle of June.”
O’Rourke was always going to be a hard act to follow, but you get the feeling Monaghan couldn’t have made a better appointment that Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney.
He’s done the job previously, is a Monaghan-man to the core, and, perhaps most importantly, has the natural self-confidence to believe he could do a better job than O’Rourke did rather than fret about his ability to fill his predecessor’s shoes.
It was ‘Banty’ who first brought Hughes into the panel back in 2006, and his tick every box approach is just as apparent in his second coming as manager as it was back then.
“He does a lot of good stuff behind the scenes,” says Hughes. “He's always trying to get the best of the best to do their best for the players. He strives for that sort of perfection.
“He's always on the look-out for various things outside of match-days and trying to get everything in line and make sure that all the boxes are ticked. He does a lot from that point of view.
“When he was going for the job he was obviously focusing on getting a good coaching team and did a great job getting Pete Donnelly, Conor Laverty, and David McCague in to his coaching set-up. They've all blended in pretty well so far.”
Monaghan manager Séamus McEnaney and selector David McCague ahead of the Allianz Football League Division 1 Round 1 match between Galway and Monaghan at Pearse Stadium in Galway.
The recruitment of Peter Donnelly, in particular, was a coup because he built such a positive reputation as an S&C coach with Tyrone until his departure from the role at the end of last season.
“He's very good,” says Hughes of Donnelly. “The three coaches are all working very well with each other. Pete is more in control of the S&C and doing some things on the pitch as well.
“I would have known Pete before from playing with him in Jordanstown so I knew what he was going to bring to the table.
“He was highly reputable in his own county of Tyrone and throughout Ulster so it was great for ourselves to get him.”
It’s very early days yet, but Monaghan have looked impressive so far this year.
They could count themselves unfortunate to lose in Round 1 of the Allianz League against Galway, defeated Tyrone in Round 2, and then drew with Dublin in Round 3 in a match they should most definitely have won.
Until Dublin’s late onslaught that salvaged an unlikely draw one of the most interesting sub-plots of the match was Monaghan’s dominance in the middle third of the field.
By now we’re used to Brian Fenton bossing proceedings in that sector of the game, but for long stretches he found himself playing second-fiddle to the formidable double-act of Hughes and Niall Kearns.
Niall Kearns and Brian Fenton challenge for the throw-in at the start of the recent Monaghan v Dublin Allianz Football League Division 1 clash at Croke Park.
It was an illustration of how much they were missed last year when Hughes was ruled out with that broken ankle and Kearns took some time re-establish himself in the team after undergoing surgery to repair a leaking valve in his heart.
“Yeah, I suppose myself and Niall were both missing last year,” says Hughes. “Niall got back for the Championship but we never got a chance to play together last year after a pretty decent year together in 2018.
“It was disappointing because we were hoping to push on together from 2018 but never got that chance.
“Niall has had his own troubles as well and thankfully he's come out the right side of them and is starting to come back to himself. He had a couple of big performances in the last couple of games in the League.”
Hughes admits the manner in which they let a commanding lead slip against Dublin in that match was ‘frustrating’, but still takes a lot of positives from the manner in which they dominated the All-Ireland champions for long stretches of the match.
Monaghan have given Dublin more trouble in the League than most teams in recent years, and Hughes believes the secret to knocking the five-in-a-row All-Ireland champions out of their stride is to take them head on rather than try to contain them.
“I think it is,” he says. “We've enough experience of playing against them now. We played against them in '14 and '16 in Croke Park in the Championship and we thought we'd sit back and contain them hoping for the best and they just blew us away.
“We've done it in League games as well, try to contain them, and it just doesn't work. Whatever chance you have, you can't give them boys the ball. We've seen that over the years. “That comes from experience of playing against them and knowing what didn't work so you're just trying something else that might work.
“We've probably done okay against them but we've only won two games against them. A couple of draws and a couple of one point defeats. We've tried to learn from the mistakes we've made against them.”
