MONAGHAN’S LEADING MAN
The support cast around him has become increasingly polished in recent years but the inspirational Conor McManus is still top dog
PRIOR to the 2014 Ulster SFC final, Jim McGuinness decided to alter the defensive structure that had propelled his Donegal side to an All-Ireland title two years previous. If their opponents were attacking, he wanted two tag teams with Neil McGee and Paddy McGrath in one and Eamon McGee and Frank McGlynn in the other. The reason was simple – Conor McManus.
‘It was the first time that we did that,’ Eamon McGee remembers. ‘Myself and Frank were to doubleteam Kieran Hughes while Neil and Paddy, I think, were told to look after McManus. The year before, we had just played a sweeper against Monaghan, Mark McHugh sweeping in front of the full-back line. But that wasn’t enough to deal with McManus.’
It worked. McManus did score a late point, to keep his record intact of scoring in every Championship game he has played since 2012, but he was swamped in Clones. It was one of the few bad days that the Clontibret man has had in the Ulster SFC.
At the time, his genius wasn’t widely known further south. It is now. As Monaghan prepare for their first AllIreland semi-final in 30 years, a stage his talent was destined to adorn, McManus is considered the frontrunner for Footballer of the Year. If the county get past Tyrone, the 30year-old will, at least, get a nomination for that award. Many believe he should have been so acknowledged in other summers, even when Monaghan stumbled at the quarter-final stage.
In his 54 Championship appearances to date, he has scored an eyewatering 7-200. In the seven years since he became the county’s established free-taker, he has been held to a single score on only a handful of occasions in League or Championship. As the GAA statistical blog Don’tFoul has pointed out, even when he doesn’t finish chances, he usually creates them. He has been involved in one of every three of his side’s scores during the Super 8s. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent and is widely considered the greatest footballer his county has ever produced.
‘He has been the best forward in the country this year,’ says former Monaghan manager Eamonn McEneaney. ‘I’ve thought that over the past couple of years, but I think others are seeing it now. Ciarán Kilkenny has done well for Dublin but he is more of a workhorse and I don’t think he is capable of kicking the scores that Conor can.’
McEneaney said: ‘He was always a very good ball-striker. What he is able to do is kick the ball high, but also kick it accurately. Very few players can do that. And when you’re able to kick the ball high, it makes it harder for defenders to get a block on it.’
Eamon McGee believes that the only way to stifle McManus on the field is to double up on him.
‘I couldn’t understand it when I saw that Kerry were going man-to-man on him. You can’t do that, you have to double-team him. It’s the only way to stop him.
‘He can score from any sort of crazy angle. With some forwards, if you push them to an impossible angle on the wing, you are fairly confident they won’t score but McManus is such a pure ball-striker that he can score from almost anywhere. He is deceptively strong too, he is well able to hold off his man.’
It’s strange to consider at this vantage point – when McManus has been the inspiration and driving force behind arguably Monaghan’s greatest team – but there was a time when the county didn’t know how to harness his rare talent.
He didn’t even make the minor squad and made little impression at Under-21 level. He won a county Championship with Clontibret while still a teenager but, in the subsequent Ulster club campaign, he ended up playing wing-back and marking Oisín McConville when they came up against Crossmaglen.
While McConville scored 0-4, McManus scored 0-3.
He made his Championship debut for Monaghan under Séamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney in 2007. He played wingback against Down and came on in that year’s Ulster final when they were trounced by Tyrone.
The only game he didn’t feature in that year was the barn-storming, heart-wrenching All-Ireland quarterfinal defeat to Kerry.
He was still being used as a wingback in those days. In 2010, though, he was given a more pronounced role in attack and Eamonn McEneaney made him free-taker the following year. He hasn’t looked back since.
In the past, the strain of having to do it all himself took its toll. In the two All-Ireland quarter-finals Monaghan lost to Tyrone, he was responsible for half their scores as the rest of the forwards went missing. But the most encouraging thing about the journey this summer is that others have stepped up when he’s been surrounded by a squadron of defenders.
Last week in Salthill, it was Ryan McAnespie, who nailed the four points from play. Against Laois earlier this summer, Shane Carey stepped up with three points from play. In the past, the feeling was that if a team were able to silence McManus, they would also muffle Monaghan. Not any more.
While McManus remains the leader of the attack, the focal point of the team and a genius who can do things that nobody else can, he no longer has to do it all himself now.
‘And that’s the thing. Teams will always be frightened of Conor and what he can do, but there are other forwards now who can make an impact and carry a threat. That’s been the big difference for Monaghan this year,’ says McEneaney.
It is easy to imagine Mickey Harte formulating a plan to curb McManus ever since that May afternoon in Omagh when Monaghan flung Tyrone into the qualifiers.
He will almost certainly be doublemarked in Croke Park today. And the supply lines to him will be disrupted further out the field, too.
But even when double-teamed and starved of supply, McManus often finds a way to make himself relevant. And there will be some sort of poetic justice if the man they called Mansy can plot a route to an All-Ireland final against Tyrone, of all teams.
It was against today’s opponents that he first pierced the sporting consciousness outside of Ulster when Sean Cavanagh body-wrapped him in the All-Ireland quarter-final as he was about to pull the trigger on an almost certain goal that would have been decisive.
That controversial incident is often wrongly attributed to the birth of the black card – it was already due to be introduced. In that 2013 quarter-final, McManus was left to carry the fight to Tyrone on his own. He won’t this afternoon. He will have a supporting cast in a much more polished Monaghan outfit.
But if the county is to scale heights not reached in 88 years and make the AllIreland final, it may be down to McManus to carry them there.
Yet again.