If Monaghan are to shatter their own glass ceiling and reach an All-Ireland final, it has long been argued they need other players to ease the scoring burden on star attacker Conor McManus.
It may be relatively early in the 2022 Championship, but there are encouraging signs that Seamus McEnaney’s men have made genuine progress in that regard.
They posted 0-23 in last Saturday’s 10-point victory over Down in Clones with 11 different players getting on the scoresheet to set up a provincial semi-final meeting with Derry in the Athletic Grounds on Sunday, May 15.
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It was no surprise that goalkeeper Rory Beggan got in on the act, converting a free and a '45, and he feels having an impressive spread of scorers was one of the most pleasing aspects of the quarter-final win.
“It is good to get lads up the field and get the scores as we are going to need that throughout the year," said Beggan.
“We’re told a lot that we rely on Conor (McManus). Now, we’ve Jack (McCarron) coming along and we’ve other lads adding to the scoreboard.
"It is important that we chip in from behind and get scores to ease the burden a wee bit.
“We’d 23 points against Down, but it isn’t going to be like that the next day. We just need to refocus and get this game out of our system.”
McCarron continued his fine scoring form after leading the fine for the Farney in the League as they retained their Division One status.
Against Down, he turned in a Man-of-the-Match display, scoring 0-7 including three from play.
Full-forward Gary Mohan also impressed on his Championship debut while Monaghan’s full-back line of Kieran Duffy, Conor Boyle and Ryan Wylie all scored from play.
However, the concession of two goals, one either side of half-time, threatened to momentarily derail Monaghan’s Ulster ambitions.
Caolan Mooney found the net on the cusp of half-time while Pat Havern beat Beggan on the restart to cut Monaghan’s lead back to a point.
The home side recovered quickly and outscored their opponents 0-11 to 0-3 for the remainder of the contest.
Beggan insisted that Monaghan are experienced enough at this stage not to be rattled by leaking goals and said their response from the set-backs was telling.
“We were told to refocus - that stuff happens. We’ll try and avoid it for the next game and we’ll get a look at the game again during the week,” added the Monaghan ’keeper.
“You can be lulled into a false sense when you are going well and you do stuff we are told not to do and maybe that led to their first goal.
“In the second half, they hit us with that sucker punch of a goal. We just refocused and got back to what we were doing well and, thankfully, it showed in the end.
“We knew we needed to get our hands on the ball from the next kick-out and work the next score. In fairness to the lads, we’ve been in this situation before when people are touting you to win and win well.
“They never go like that, but we knew they (Down) would hit us hard at some time. It was the response from the goals that was pleasing and we pushed on from that.”
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