‘There is devastation at potentially losing Jack’ – Currin to appeal McCarron transfer

Monaghan star Jack McCarron who has been granted a transfer from Currin to Scotstown. Photo: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Colm Keys

Jack McCarron has been granted a transfer from his Monaghan club Currin to Scotstown by the county’s Competitions Controls Committee (CCC).

Currin have received official notification of the decision in recent days, but are now planning to challenge it at a hearing.

Monaghan CCC are understood to have granted the transfer on the basis of a county by-law that allow members to join a club that they have an association with through parentage or guardianship.

McCarron’s father Ray – an Ulster winner with Monaghan in 1985 and ’88 – originally played for Scotstown, winning multiple senior championships with them through the 1980s and nineties.

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Monaghan’s by-law 8.5 (b) states that “a member shall be regarded as having an “other relevant connection with a catchment area if it has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the CCC that a strong family connection i.e. parents/guardians, exists between the player and the club with which the player wishes to become a member.”

Scotstown are the strongest club in Monaghan over the last decade, with seven of the last senior titles – and historically they are second, on 21, in the roll of honour to Castleblayney.

Currin chairman John Connolly, a former Monaghan chair himself and a past Ulster Council official, has confirmed the club will be challenging the decision at a hearing, based on the wording of the by-law which they feel should not apply in this case.

Currin are a one-team junior club in north Monaghan, not far from Clones – and according to Connolly have only 23 active adult players, with limited numbers coming through at under-age level in such a small catchment area.

“Naturally enough for a club of our size, there is devastation at potentially losing Jack who has been a wonderful player for us for 22 years,” said Connolly. “And that devastation is not just in the club, it’s in the community.”

McCarron’s form for Monaghan has been so strong that he has been nominated for a PwC All-Star in 2021 and 2022. A move to Scotstown, where Darren and Kieran Hughes, Rory Beggan, Conor McCarthy and Shane Carey are among the county players currently involved, would really strengthen their hand.

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