Football

Monaghan in rude health ahead of Dublin 'dead-rubber' clash

Conor McManus has hit 1-16 this season despite not starting in a couple of Monaghan's games
Conor McManus has hit 1-16 this season despite not starting in a couple of Monaghan's games Conor McManus has hit 1-16 this season despite not starting in a couple of Monaghan's games

Allianz National Football League Division One: Dublin v Monaghan (tomorrow, Croke Park, 3pm)

IT’S a measure of how far Monaghan have come under Malachy O’Rourke that they secured their Division One status with a game to spare.

And it says something for the Farney County that they can count themselves unlucky not to be in this season’s Division One decider after tomorrow’s hosts and current All-Irelnd champions Dublin kept them out of it by grabbing a late draw against Galway last weekend.

Monaghan have made themselves part of the Division One furniture and O’Rourke has achieved this by playing over 30 players in their six games to date.

Nobody can compete with Dublin’s embarrassment of riches but Monaghan’s bench this season hasn’t looked too shabby.

Dessie Mone, Conor McManus, Ryan Wylie, Colin Walshe, Kieran Hughes and Owen Duffy are just some of the more established names that have been held in reserve in various League games this season.

There was a time when McManus had to play every minute of every League game in order to boost Monaghan’s chances of remaining in the top flight.

Not any more.

The 30-year-old Clontibret ace didn’t feature in their opening day defeat to Mayo as David Garland, Conor McCarthy and Jack McCarron hit a combined eight points of Monaghan’s tally of 12 on the day.

McManus came off the bench in their one-point wins over Kildare and Tyrone before being unleashed against Kerry where he notched 1-3 in Inniskeen.

McManus insists he’s never felt pressure to get Monaghan’s scores and says he’s surrounded by a wealth of scoring talent this season.

“I have never really entertained that,” he said.

“We have a panel of players that are working extremely hard and doing whatever is asked of them in whatever role they’re given.

“If you look at what I've kicked over the years a lot of it would have been free-kicks. Every free-taker is among the top scorers in their team. I don’t read too much into it and it’s not something that we’ve talked about in the Monaghan dressing room.

“We’ve a lot of talented forwards and a lot of talented scorers. We’ve had a decent League this year and we’ve had a lot of boys contributing on the scoreboard.”

In terms of sharing the scoring burden, McManus is right. Eight players registered scores in each of their wins over Kildare, Tyrone and Donegal.

Still, McManus remains their leading scorer with 1-16 (1-10 from placed balls) followed by Jack McCarron (0-14, 0-9 frees) and Conor McCarthy (1-5, 0-3 frees).

With tomorrow’s fixture the proverbial ‘dead rubber’, O’Rourke will still want to field a strong line-up against the Dubs as it will be Monaghan’s last competitive fixture ahead of their Ulster Championship showdown with Tyrone on May 20.

And they’ll be keen to give Dublin a bloody nose after being well beaten by Jim Gavin’s men at the All-Ireland quarter-final stages in 2014 and 2017.

“There’s no doubt Dublin are a step above the rest at the minute – three All-Irelands in a row tells you that straight away,” McManus said.

“It’s the way they’re playing and the level of players they have at their disposal. If somebody would have told you that the likes of Paul Flynn, Diarmuid Connolly, Bernard Brogan and Alan Brogan wouldn’t be starting in an All-Ireland final but Dublin would still be winning them, you would question that.

“It just shows you the turnover of players and the quality they have year on year, so there’s no doubt they’re top of the pile and it’s up to the rest of us to catch up with them.”

McManus acknowledges that those defeats to Dublin and a couple to Tyrone at Croke Park have had a scarring effect on O’Rourke’s squad.

“That’s been the most disappointing thing about Monaghan’s form over the last four or five years, that we haven’t really gone up to Croke Park on quarter-final day and put in a performance and winning a game against the Dubs. So that will be levelled against us until we change it.

“But, from our point of view, we’re a long way from getting the chance to do that.”