I’M PROUD TO PLAY FOR ANTRIM, SAYS NEIL McMANUS
McManus would grace any top side, but he’s still happy with the hand dealt to him
NEIL McMANUS is talking about identity. About whether he has ever wondered about the quirk of fate or geography that sees the career of a hurler from Antrim play out differently to a talented player from a blue-blood territory like Kilkenny. The answer is a simple one. ‘I don’t really wonder about it to be honest. I’ve been lucky, a lot of southern universities offered me the opportunity to come and study and hurl there. Things like that. But I never really had any interest in ever playing for anybody bar Antrim and Cushendall.
‘To be totally honest, and this sounds totally harsh, I wouldn’t care about the other ones. About a team outside of the ones that you are brought up with and brought to support and then play with. I don’t know how it could mean anything to you. It wouldn’t to me.’
His life has been bound up in hurling, with club and county. Next Saturday, Ruairí Óg, Cushendall, return to an AIB All-Ireland club hurling semi-final, taking on St Thomas’ of Galway at Parnell Park. The other semi-final features a Ballyhale Shamrocks team managed by Henry Shefflin, the only player in the history of the game with 10 All-Ireland medals. Yet, arguably, Kilkenny’s greatest will quickly tell you that the game is about a whole lot more than silverware.
Around Christmas, Michael Duignan of this parish tipped his hat to McManus as one of the game’s ‘Unsung Heroes’ after he was recently honoured as the Ulster Player of the Year. He proclaimed that a Celtic Cross doesn’t define a career, whether it’s Ken McGrath of Waterford or Ciarán Carey of Limerick.
‘It was very flattering,’ he says. ‘Very much appreciated. A lovely gesture.
‘There is no way that Ken McGrath’s hurling career, or Ciarán Carey’s hurling career, were a failure because they didn’t win an AllIreland medal. People who understand the game know that that’s just not the case. They are two of the foremost legends of the modern game. Ken obviously went close with club and county.
‘Those players are idols of every hurler of their own era and the newer generation. There are loads of people who have had much less successful careers and won All-Irelands. That’s the truth. There are plenty of guys who have had a much lesser impact on the game and have numerous All-Irelands.
‘Certainly an All-Ireland medal or not with Antrim won’t define my hurling career and no need to say it doesn’t define Ken McGrath’s career or Ciarán Carey’s because they were special.’
Now the other side of 30, his club commitments mean that he won’t be involved in Antrim’s trip to Meath this afternoon in Division 2A. There was a time that All-Ireland dream beat strongly in his head. ‘It was certainly there for a time. Even in 2010, we played in an All-Ireland quarter-final, were beaten narrowly by Cork. The time when I felt it was going to happen was when I was a minor. We were trawling up and down the country, playing Wexford, Cork, Tipp and beating them or competing with them.
‘We had a group back then. But we filled the county team for the last 12 years out of one group of players almost. That, unfortunately, has been the downfall. You need more than one set of players.
‘At the end of the day, Antrim are not going to win the All-Ireland this year. You have to be realistic about your goals, as a team and as a player as well.’
The county’s tale of being relegated though from Division 1B in 2018 was a tale of near misses. On the day Dublin nicked a late winner in Corrigan Park in Belfast, McManus hit 16 of his county’s 22 points – 11 frees, two 65s and three from play in a peerless display of scoring on a cold February Sunday. And yet he nearly got more attention for a clip of a no-look handpass to set up a goal in the club championship that September, posted online by Antrim PRO Seán Kelly.
He saw the reaction to Buff Egan’s social media coverage of the county final as a sign of how the pulse of Antrim hurling is still strong. ‘You could have anywhere from six to 10,000 people at the Antrim county final. A lot of Gaels, Ulster hurling men, come from all around the province to watch that final. Buff Egan was there, putting up his snapchats. I had loads of people sending me messages from the south, top inter-county players, saying, “Well done. Saw your win on Buff’s Snapchat.”
‘He has a massive, massive following. Buff Egan is doing more promotion for the teams outside the top tier than the GAA are doing.’
Something that would promote hurling in Ulster is the turning of the sod on the stalled Casement Park redevelopment.
‘We need Casement. Ulster hurling needs Casement. West Belfast as an area needs Casement. From what I hear the noises are good, it will start next year.
‘I could probably speak for all of Ulster when I say, the profile of hurling needs to be changed. Football is the glamour sport here in Ulster. There are very small pockets nurturing the whole of the province. That has to change. Antrim are Ulster’s flagship team and we need Antrim to be competing at the top level.’
Not that he has revised his expectations in terms of the club. It’s only 2012 that Antrim and Ulster champions Loughgiel Shamrocks won the club All-Ireland, adding to the previous standalone success of 1983.
Of next Saturday’s challenge against the Galway champions, he explains: ‘The great opportunity you have as an Ulster team is that you will automatically be the fourth ranked team in the semi-finals, regardless of who you beat, it doesn’t really matter. We’re in a nice position. All the pressure is on St Thomas. The only pressure on us is from ourselves. We certainly believe we can go on to Croke Park.’
In that respect, the All-Ireland dream is very much still alive. ‘As a club team we’d fear absolutely nobody. My generation have played in four or five All-Ireland semifinals. Won one of them, drew in another, been there or thereabouts or numerous occasions. Seen the teams we’ve played go on and win All-Irelands.
‘I grew up watching Cushendall play St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield, Wolfe Tones – the two Clare sides. We should have got past them both. Played De La Salle with John Mullane; we had them beat only the ‘Bull’ Phelan scored a line ball from 70 yards.
‘That’s inherent within our club that we should be aiming to win AllIrelands. Eventually we will get there as a club.’