WHAT’S ‘Mansy’ doing so far back? Get up the field to…score!” That’s the cleaned-up version of comments you often hear about Monaghan’s star forward Conor McManus – and from the county’s media, never mind their supporters.
Yet the man himself smiles when asked if he’s told to drop so deep at times, or if he’s simply doing so in an effort to get his hands on the ball
“It’s a case of when your man runs up the field, if you don’t follow him and he gets on the end of a score, the finger is going to be pointed at you,” he explains.
“The way the game is now, you have to do both sides of it, offensively and defensively, you have to do your bit.”
The Clontibret clubman usually does more than his bit, and once again scored more than half his county’s total at the weekend, albeit that was only four points in a 0-7 apiece draw against old rivals Cavan.
Scores were obviously at a premium, which increased the importance of forwards doing their defensive duties.
Unusually, McManus sent one free short and another wide, but a swirling wind was a significant factor in curtailing the scoring of both sides in Castleblayney, as he recalled:
“It was all over the place there, it was very hard to get a gauge on it, even from kicking. One minute you’d have the ball and the wind would be behind you, the next minute it would be going across the field.
“It did make things difficult and the ultimately the performances of both teams probably showed that. It was a difficult day for football.
“I’m sure Cavan will be disappointed that they didn’t put us away, they had their chances. On the flip side, we had chances in the second half to do the same to them.”
A win would have sent Monaghan clear at the top of Division One and almost ensure a fourth consecutive season in the top flight, but McManus put a positive light on the single point they earned:
“We’d have been more comfortable anyway [with a win] but maybe that draw will give us the drive to keep things going in training and put in better performances.
“We have two tough games on the trot now, away to Kerry and Tyrone, and we’ll need two good performances in those places.
“You just have to concentrate on performing: we didn’t perform against Cavan and didn’t get the win; we did perform down in Castlebar [against Mayo] and got the win.
“We have to get the best out of ourselves – work-rate, ball retention, things like that we have to improve, and we will.”
Monaghan have tended to start their Division One campaigns well, winning in Omagh in their opener two years ago, a season when they also enjoyed away victories over Donegal and Kerry.
Home teams have struggled in the top flight so far this season, but that doesn’t surprise ‘Mansy’: “It’s that kind of division – if we’ve learned anything over the last couple of years it’s that on any given day any team can beat anybody. It’s another point on the board, we could have had nothing, so we’ll work towards the next day.”
However, McManus anticipates a tough test down in the Kingdom, despite their home loss to Mayo last weekend:
“They have serious talent, it’s been well documented in recent weeks the youth they have coming through from their [All-Ireland winning] minor teams.
“We’ll be under no illusions that it’s going to be a very difficult task down in Kerry. They have a lot of threats and a lot of dangers up front. We’ll have to be on top of our game to get points out of Killarney. There’s a lot of improvement we need to do before heading to Kerry”.
