In Monaghan , it’s been a year of chasing with their tongues hanging out. Of far too often feeling like they’re a day late and a dollar short. Ten points down against Derry, seven down against Armagh, 12 behind against Mayo. Finding a way back each time to popular acclaim. All the while wishing they stopped making it all so hard on themselves.
It’s given them one of the most eye-catching seasons of any team in the championship. Huge momentum swings and last-minute equalisers, thrilling hooter-beaters and a couple of extra-times. Ultimately though, back-to-back defeats in Clones have left them staring down the barrel against Roscommon this weekend. The drama is enjoyable for everyone else. For them, it’s just very, very annoying.
“Everyone’s clapping you on the back,” says Rory Beggan. “But you’re sitting there in meeting rooms going, ‘Why? Why is this happening? Why are we only suddenly starting playing the football of our lives in the game whenever we’re 10 or 11 down?’
“It’s a question we still probably haven’t put our finger on but hopefully there’s an answer for it this weekend. You’re into the part of the championship now where you can just not afford to do it. Teams are a wee bit sharper now, they’ve got more championship games under their belt and it’s do or die. No team is going to allow you back in with that sort of deficit.
“Especially this weekend. You lose, you’re gone. That’s it. You’re not meeting up till November. So you don’t want to have to be in that position. We’re well used to it if it does happen. But for us, we just want to make sure that when you’re in the second half, that it’s close or you’re ahead. That’s realistically what the aim is.”
If the season does end this weekend, deliberations over the identity of Monaghan’s player of the season won’t take long. Beggan is their leading scorer so far, with 0-15 to his name in four games (five two-point frees and five 45s). His interventions coming out the field have been crucial to their three stand-out goals – one that he put on a plate for Micheál Bannigan against Derry and the two he set in motion the last day against Mayo.
Drama at the end of Monaghan v Derry unlike anything you'll ever see, Rory Beggan seemingly the only man in the Athletic Grounds who knew the rules to restart the game, & Jack McCarron with the two-pointer of a lifetime to equalise with the last kick 🤯 pic.twitter.com/uBFnyiB3Jl
— Ronan Mullen (@RonanReigns) May 2, 2026
He was a key player in the full-time drama in the Derry game, when he and Davy Garland convinced referee Paddy Neilan to change his mind and allow Jack McCarron to try for an equalising two-pointer from the sideline. Largely forgotten in the hullabaloo afterwards was the fact that it was Beggan who kicked the winner that day, a two-point free from 47 metres at the end of extra-time.
[ Rory Beggan’s two-pointer seals dramatic extra-time victory for Monaghan over Derry Opens in new window ]
This is Beggan’s 16 th year on the Monaghan panel and his 14 th as their number one. According to the journalist Colm Shalvey, whose record-keeping in these matters borders on the heroic, Beggan has played 66 championship games for Monaghan, putting him third on their all-time list behind Conor McManus and Darren Hughes. He has scored 0-104, grouping him with McManus, Tommy Freeman, Paul Finlay and Jack McCarron as Monaghan players with over 100 championship points.
“I haven’t lost a love for it at all,” he says. “It probably isn’t life or death for me the way it would have been maybe 10 years ago all right. But that’s probably no harm either. There was a time when everything I would have done on the football pitch, whether it was a mistake or something you’ve done well, I would always just have worked on it that week.
“Now you’re probably just focusing on a lot of other things in life. Football’s a part of it and I still put a massive emphasis on my football. But I don’t get too down with the losses and I don’t get too high with the wins any more compared to what I was.
“ When we lost the Ulster final , it was tough because we were so close in the game. And winning another Ulster title is still a huge ambition – our last one was 2015 at this stage. But it was a case of, ‘Right. We can’t dwell on this for a week. Let’s get back at it and give this All-Ireland our full focus.’ Getting back on that horse, I don’t think it was as hard as maybe it would have been over the years.”
Monaghan goalkeeper Rory Beggan celebrates after winning the Ulster final against Donegal in 2013. Photograph: Donall Farmer/Inpho
Beggan made his championship debut against Antrim in 2013 and has been through every evolution of the game since then. More than that, he’s led some of it. When blanket defences got to nihilistic levels towards the end of the last decade, he was one of the first goalkeepers to regularly involve himself in open play in the opposition half. It didn’t always go well.
While the idea was sound – if the other crowd br…
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