NEW Monaghan boss Gabriel Bannigan would love to have Conor McManus, Darren Hughes and Karl O’Connell at his disposal next year – but the experienced trio are still mulling over their Farney futures for now.
Following an emotional exit from Pearse Park after Monaghan’s All-Ireland Championship defeat to Galway in June, it was widely anticipated that the curtain would be coming down on McManus’s brilliant career.
However, the veteran forward has yet to confirm his intentions one way or the other.
Hughes, meanwhile, saw his Championship campaign curtailed after being stretchered off 15 minutes into the second half of their derby defeat to Cavan, while fellow 37-year-old O’Connell – who narrowly missed out on an Allstar after a superb 2023 - is also weighing up what the future holds.
And having been part of Vinny Corey’s management team for the past two years, prior to being announced as the Clontibret man’s successor last week, Bannigan is well aware of what those three stalwarts offer the Monaghan panel.
“They have been phenomenal servants, and they wouldn’t have kept going back for more if they didn’t feel there was more to give.
“The three of them are in the same position; they’re involved with clubs in the Monaghan championship, and they really don’t know themselves until that’s over and they see how their body is, and whether they feel there is anything left to give.
“But those men are Monaghan through and through, and they know that if they have anything left to give we’ll certainly want to have them on board.”
Indeed, conversations with those three – and the wider panel – have already taken place since his appointment a week ago.
“Of course I have,” said the Aughnamullen clubman, uncle of current Farney player Micheal Bannigan, “I’ve had conversations with every single player over the last 48 hours – it was a big priority of mine to do that.
“A huge focus of mine, in anything I’ve ever done in management, has been the people and, in sport, the players.”
One man who will play a key role next year, though, is Rory Beggan.
The Scotstown goalkeeper missed Monaghan’s National League campaign - at the end of which they were relegated to Division Two - as he pursued his American dream as part of the NFL’s International Player Pathway, before returning for the Championship.
“I spoke to Rory over the weekend – he is 100 per cent committed to Monaghan GAA, he has nothing else in his head,” added Bannigan.
“This was something Rory wanted to do, an opportunity he got to go and put his best foot forward and see what happened, because an opportunity like that doesn’t come along that often.
“He went and he spent his number of months over there going through that experience and, as it turned out, he ended up coming back to ourselves, came back in and was straight back into performing at the high standards he sets.
“But that’s done now. Rory is 100 per cent committed to Monaghan, and I’m delighted to have him in that position.”
Bannigan won’t be able to get his men gathered on a training field until December 7 - that return date pushed back due to the temporary abolition of inter-county competitions – but already it is a challenge he is relishing.
And the former Kilmacud Crokes boss has no concerns about the age profile of a squad he has worked alongside at close quarters.
“There is a narrative out there about the Monaghan squad, probably because we do have Mansy, Darren Hughes and Karl O’Connell who are 37.
“People have been expecting them to hang up the boots for the last couple of years, and because of that this narrative always seems to come out about Monaghan being an old squad… it’s not an old squad.
“After that, there’s a couple of others in around the 32-33 mark, then we have a cohort of players in around the mid-20s, fellas like Killian Lavelle, Ryan McAnespie, Miceal Bannigan, Stevie O’Hanlon.
Rory Beggan seems to have been around forever, but he’s 31. Rory is still very young for a goalkeeper.”
