Monaghan ... 2-13 Derry ... 0-12 Colm Coyle's Monaghan side's extra composure and physical presence enabled them to ease past an inexperienced Derry side in the fog at Ballinascreen yesterday.

Goals from two experienced hands - CiaráTavey in the seventh minute and Damien Freeman in the 22nd - made sure that Monaghan never looked like losing this game.

For a while it seemed Derry would be overwhelmed, as a point from Freeman and Tavey's goal gave them a 1-1 to no score lead after only seven minutes. The Derry new boys, however, found their feet, Donal Boylan getting a point with a well-struck free and further points from Niall Convery and Nigel Dillon closed the gap to the minimum.

Monaghan had the better of things in the opening half, with Jason Hughes showing well in midfield and Tavey taking two more points.

When Freeman pounced on a handling error by Derry goalkeeper Ciarán Wilkinson after 32 minutes Monaghan led 2-5 to 0-4. A Niall Convery point on the stroke of half-time gave Derry a glimmer of hope.

At the start of the second half the teams traded points and the introduction of first-team regular Conleth Gilligan brought a little more direction to Derry's attacking play.

However, Derry's revival was derailed in the 63rd minute by the rather harsh sending-off of substitute midfielder Paul Hasson.

MONAGHAN: G Murphy; C Flanagan, D McKenna, P McKenna; J Conlon, D Duffy, JP Mone; A Rooney, J Hughes (0-1); P Finlay (0-3, one free), G Meehan (0-1), T Freeman; C Tavey (1-3), R Ronaghan, D Freeman (1-2). Subs: J Mone (0-1) for T Freeman, R Woods (0-1) for Tavey, E Lennon for Hughes, D Smyth (0-1) for Meehan.

DERRY: C Wilkinson; D Shivers, F McEldowney, D Scullion; B Mullan, A Heaney, F Devlin; J Donaghy, Gary Doyle; D Boylan (0-2, frees), M O'Neill (0-2), D McNally; N Dillon (0-1); M. Loughrey, N Convery (0-2). Subs: J O'Kane (0-1) for Donaghy, P Hasson for Doyle, P McLaughlin for Loughrey, B Doherty (0-2) for McNally, C Gilligan (0-2, one free) for Dillon.

Referee: M Kolbohm (Tyrone).