Monaghan started 2013 in Division Three. Things just fell into place that league and we started to win games and to get the confidence going again after two straight relegations. Once a team with the quality we had at the time starts to win, it just feeds into the whole group and confidence rises.At that stage, Monaghan hadn’t won Ulster for 25 years and to be honest, we didn’t strike fear into the province in the early stages. Lucky to get over Antrim, we had Cavan in the semi-final.They had actually beaten us in the league in a very poor match that got messy and a few people were sent off. We were hopping to get another go at them, ‘welcome’ them to Clones and scraped through by a point. But as Dick Clerkin said, we’d been in three competitions (McKenna Cup, league and Ulster) and had reached three finals.We also had experience of the big day, losing to Tyrone in 2007 (narrowly) and 2010 (not so narrowly). Looking back, it taught us to be a wee bit more reserved in the lead-up and not as accessible all the time.This was different, though. We were going to play Donegal in the final. They were All-Ireland champions and 1/7 to win. We weren’t at our best going into it but All-Ireland champions or not, Donegal had never become an issue for Monaghan the way other counties had sometimes been for us.Malachy O’Rourke worked us as hard as I’d ever trained in preparation for that final.We also had the right mix: younger guys like Colin Walsh, Kieran Duffy, Kieran Hughes and Fintan Kelly; older players like Owen Lennon, Dick Clerkin, Vinnie Corey, Tommy Freeman and then you had the middle group of the likes of myself, Darren Hughes, Karl O’Connell, Owen Duffy and Drew Wylie.Monaghan players are mobbed by ecstatic supporters after the Ulster final win against Donegal in 2013. Photograph: William Cherry/Presseye/Inpho Defence wins championships. If you’re a forward, staring down the pitch, nothing gets the spirit up like seeing three of your teammates descending on an opposing forward, swarming him and coming out with the ball. I can remember Drew, Colin and Vinny doing that in 2013. The ball pops out, the crowd comes alive and I can still feel the elation.I remember Walshie putting in a tackle on Paddy McBrearty. It wasn’t a ball he should have been winning but he did – just got his hand in to dispossess him and off we go up the field. We started so well from the moment Darren Hughes scored the first point in the first minute and then you have big scores like Pádraig Donaghy swinging one over from 40-45 yards to put us 0-4 to nil ahead. I don’t think they scored for the first half hour.But even before that ball sailed over the bar, you were thinking this is going to script. This is what we talked about and how we planned it. Basic rule. You never have an Ulster final won until you hear the whistle – two years later, Donegal nearly caught us – but in 2013 I went off in injury-time for Tommy Freeman and he kicked the last point to put us six ahead. I knew then.[ Monaghan v Derry had one of the most unbelievable finishes to a game you’ll ever seeOpens in new window ]Donegal's Paul Durcan with Monaghan's Conor McManus in 2013. Photoraph: William Cherry/Presseye/Inpho The team this weekend will also have the cover of being underdogs. Armagh were All-Ireland champions just two years ago but Monaghan have a decent record against them.One match stands out. Five years ago, the night before we played them in an Ulster semi-final, I was going to bed and it was roasting hot so the windows were open. I could hear a commotion at the end of my road, police lights and so on.Although I am usually a sound sleeper, I woke at five in the morning and there was a text saying Ógie Duffy, our under-20 captain had died in a car crash on the way home from beating Donegal to reach the Ulster final.There I was getting ready for a game and just up the road, a family was suffering unimaginable grief.We met as a team and there were a few lads from the under-20s with the seniors and they were distraught but I don’t think it was ever suggested that the match against Armagh later that day would be called off.Monaghan's Dessie Ward gets his picture taken after beating Armagh in the 2021 Ulster Championship semi-final. Photograph: John McVitty/Inpho We started like a house on fire and had four goals by half-time but, as the game wore on, we started to lose our way and ended up having to come from behind in the last two or three minutes. But we won.I remember in the lead-up to the game and the hours before, it felt irrelevant whether we won or lost. But when the game started and was in progress, it felt for that hour and a half that it was so, so important for us to win for everyone in Monaghan.I suppose the supporters, ourselves and everybody else, just for that time could forget about what was going on in the real world despite the sorrow and turmoil of the Ó Dufaigh family. For a few minutes after the whistle, it still seemed momentous but after that, it paled into insignificance again.[ Nothing will top Maurice Fitzgerald but Jack McCarron’s point for Monaghan was the next best thingOpens in new window ]