By Matthew Wilson
Four Masters assistant manager Barry Monaghan was delighted to have landed the Division 1 League title on Saturday evening.
Four Masters overcame the challenge of Dungloe in the competition’s showpiece at Davy Brennan Memorial Park at the weekend, running out two-point winners.
It was a brilliant triumph for the Donegal Town side, securing their first Division 1 crown since 2010 and speaking afterwards, Monaghan was pleased on what was a great evening for the club.
“It was a great win for us and we had our reserve side earlier who won as well so two cups in one evening is a big lift for us.
“We’re not ladened down with cups in Four Masters so it was very satisfying.
“The performance itself, if you were to pick holes in it then you could probably pick a lot. We didn’t make things easy on ourselves.
“Fair play to Dungloe, they never stopped playing and there were two points in it at the end, it was fairly tense but we were just glad to come out on the right side of it.”
The opening stanza was a finely poised affair but a strong finish saw the Tir Conaill Park residents lead by three points at the interval.
This advantage increased to four points after the restart but the Rosses Park men battled back to draw level as we entered the closing final five minutes at the Glenties venue.
However, Four Masters displayed a lot of character to respond with three successive points of their own to help them get over the line which Monaghan was very content about.
“We did have a lot of possession but we just weren’t getting the scores and we weren’t keeping the scoreboard ticking.
“When you’re playing against a team like Dungloe who are having a very good season, they were always going to come back at us.
“That was the fear and that’s what happened but fair play to our boys, they got a bit of composure and Tomás Carr hit a two-pointer near the end which was a big score.
“That gave us a bit of breathing room coming into the last few minutes. Dungloe probably needed to go for goal and they blasted one over the bar at the very end.
“It could have very easily gone underneath the bar but that’s the way these things go and we were lucky to come away with the win here tonight.”