NEIL McGee’s tour of Clones in 2015 was one he has bitter memories of. Donegal’s fearsome full-back was hoping Conor McManus would calm his jets and stay inside. Hang around the square, and breathe.
Things would have been much simpler had the Monaghan captain just stayed put instead of taking McGee to prairies he'd no desire to see.
At that time, the Donegal-Monaghan rivalry had reached fever pitch. They were Ulster football's top dogs.
Malachy O’Rourke had masterminded Monaghan’s brilliant Anglo-Celt victory in 2013; a year later, Jim McGuinness gained revenge to take Ulster.
In the 2015 Ulster final, it turned out to be Monaghan’s day again. Tactically perfect and a group of men who carried the kind of fire in the belly a defending champion can only dream about.
“Normally Conor stayed inside but that day he took me a run around Clones,” McGee ruefully recalls.
“I think he knew he had the fitness for me. I was kind of gassed a wee bit then. I would have been happy to stay inside. I was getting the upper hand early on, but once he got that score they got serious momentum.”
'That score' from McManus came in the 31st minute and was the undisputed turning point of the final.
Malachy O’Rourke remembers the moment the outcome hinged on.
“The ball was down in the corner, Ryan Wylie put great pressure on Christy Toye and the ball came out to ‘Mansy’. He took on a couple of boys and kicked it over the bar. It showed the passion he had for the game and his county and his ability to score when the pressure was at its greatest.”
In beautiful sunshine, the Monaghan supporters erupted as their team forged ahead 0-6 to 0-3 with half-time approaching.
McManus’s brilliant score seemed to destabilise Donegal.
“Neil and me spent probably the first 20-25 minutes of that final fighting, pulling and dragging,” McManus says. “I’ve had many, many battles with him. We’d have a good relationship over the years and I was lucky enough to be involved with him in Railway Cup games and International Rules tours and had many nights out with him.
“On the field, there was nothing malicious, never any dirt.”
The Monaghan forward posted another point from play on the stroke of half-time of the 2015 final before playfully patting McGee on the chest.
“To be honest, it wasn’t something I thought of doing, it just happened, I was just going past him,” McManus says now.
“We ploughed on after that and we nipped and we pulled and we dragged for the remaining 40 minutes or whatever. Luckily enough, we came out on top that day.”
In the sanctity of inter-county retirement now, McGee can reflect on his battles with Monaghan’s ageless totem with a bit more candour.
“You couldn’t really pick out one strength of Conor’s as he had a bit of everything – his ball winning, his movement and he was hard as nails too. That’s something he doesn’t get much credit for, just how tough he was given the abuse he got.
“When I had to mark him, you really had to bring the physicality to him but he was always well able for it. You couldn’t faze him. And there was no point in talking shite to McManus because there’s no weakness in him. You’d only be wasting your energy.”
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AS far as ‘clutch’ players go, there is none better than Conor McManus. The Monaghan archives are littered with game-winning moments from the Clontibret man - a player who made a friend out of adversity and high-pressure situations.
Delve into any year of the previous decade and you’ll find a string of signature performances that cut him above the rest.
Healy Park. Clones. The Athletic Grounds. Croke Park. A kind of bullish art.
The bigger the stress test, the better he became.
O’Rourke spent seven successful years with Monaghan (2013 to 2019) where he delivered two Ulster titles and raised standards to an unprecedented level.
“There are no airs or graces with Conor,” says the former Monaghan manager. “He’s just a good human being and that translates into his football as well.
“He’s very grounded and very easy to coach, always wants to improve, always wants feedback and that’s the way he was from the first day we arrived in Monaghan.”
He adds: “He definitely gave us a cutting edge up front and those extra few percentages. He was always a real clutch player and very mentally strong because often in Championship games he mightn’t be involved much but then could win the game for you in the last 10 minutes.
"He always wanted the ball, always wanted that responsibility... that was the big thing about him. Some days he kept us in games, other days he got us over the line.”
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IT'S a Friday morning before Christmas and approaching check-out time at the Hillgrove Hotel in Monaghan town.
Wearing a smart navy suit, McManus has appointments in Dublin in a couple of hours, but has time for a scone and water in a quiet corner of the hotel lobby.
He casually throws into the conversation that it’s his 35th birthday today and is looking forward, more than ever, to a 17th consecutive season with Monaghan.
After spending four years working in Dublin, he returned home to take over an estate agency business – Sherry Fitzgerald.
His offices are less than 10 minutes from his Clontibret home. So far, so good.
He’s worked hard at maintaining and building the business up alongside his committed staff.
But not for one second does he think playing football for Monaghan will help him sustain the business. Hard graft will.
Maybe the fact it’s his birthday and he knows he’s probably entering his last season as a Monaghan footballer that you find him in reflective mood.
Hailing from Clontibret by the grace of God, he has an acute sense of place.
“My mother is from Truagh and my father is from Doohamlet and they managed to settle in Clontibret which I’m very thankful for.
“If, down the line you’d kids, you’d want them to be involved in Clontibret wearing the yellow and white. It’s just the community and the people, you’re ingrained in it.
“Clontibret is quite a small place: there’s one school, one shop, one pub and obviously the clubhouse. The epicentre of the village is the football field. If you go down there on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday night there’s something on.
“You can just go down there without having a reason to go down. You could be talking to anybody from five years of age to 85 years of age."
Growing up, his field of dreams was directly beside the family home. Navigating the “sheep shit” and pretending to be Mickey Linden or Peter Canavan, his father (Frank) would fetch a million balls in the fading light for his football-daft son.
“I got goalposts from Santa in ’94... I had to get them widened a bit as I got older. I was out there every evening.
“I had my father tortured to come out and kick the ball back out to me. I wasn’t allowed to go in until I kicked 20 points in a row. I made that rule myself. I remember several nights there would have been a few hometown decisions just to get me in the door. I was just obsessed.
“That was my field of dreams. There’s a couple of sheep running around in it the last 30 years. Much to my annoyance there was sheep shit all over my field! The field is pretty much the same today. The goalposts are still there.
“But as far back as I can remember I always had a ball in my hands.”
A video was released entitled ‘Sam Goes North’, chronicling the All-Ireland odysseys the footballers of Down, Derry and Donegal embarked upon in the early 90s.
If McManus watched it once, he watched it a thousand times and knew every single syllable of Jimmy Smyth’s memorable commentary. Once he got his fix, the youngest of the house would bound out to the field and re-enact his own All-Ireland.
Any shots he would have taken while out practising, he imagined being hounded by at least two defenders. Little did he know then but that’s exactly how his playing career would later unfold.
“I always tried to put myself under pressure rather than just kick it because ultimately you’re never going to get that many opportunities to kick the ball when you’re not under pressure,” McManus says.
“Even in a training drill, where you can take four or five steps and then you can kick it, don’t take that, get it off your foot as quickly as you can because that’s what you have to be able to do.”
O’Rourke also makes the sharp observation: “Conor has this uncanny ability to transfer the ball from his hand to his foot so very, very quickly. There were times he was under tremendous pressure but he was so quick to get that transfer done and get the shot away, and he was so accurate as well.”
For the last number of years, he’s been coaching juvenile teams at the club and every opportunity he gets he preaches to the kids about the importance of practising.
“Any chance I get I tell young players they’ll not improve turning up to Clontibret on a Tuesday and a Friday. It’s just having the ball around with you.”
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THE first real sense of achievement he felt was taking part and winning the U10 Community Games in ’97 at county and provincial level.
He could still name the team, one to 15 – Enda McArdle, Matthew Brennan, Mark Finnegan... and reaching the Holy Grail up in Falcarragh.
Back then, McManus was earmarked for county honours – but his road to elite status wasn’t a straightforward one. In 2005, he still remembers the hurt and rejection he felt when cut from the Monaghan minor panel.
“A couple of boys who weren’t picked had another year of minor so it didn’t hit them as hard.”
The following year he threw himself into ‘C’, ‘B’, U21 and eventually senior football with his club determined to prove a point to himself and those who didn't select him for the Monaghan minors.
Clocking up over 60 games in ’06, he didn’t have to wait long for inter-county recognition.
He was selected for the county U21s in 2007 where Monaghan suffered an Ulster final loss to Armagh.
It was during that period where McManus could be found as easily at wing half-forward as wing half-back. He marked Charlie Vernon who was the big noise in the Orchard County in ’07.
McManus might have missed out on playing for the Monaghan minors but it didn’t affect his progress as Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney promoted him to the senior set-up, albeit as a half-back.
Banty’s Monaghan team battered on the provincial door but finished runners-up to Mickey Harte’s Tyrone side in 2007 and 2010.
Malachy O’Rourke arrived in Monaghan at the right time and claimed an Anglo-Celt Cup in his first season in charge (2013), upsetting defending All-Ireland champions Donegal in a tempestuous Ulster final.
“We were lucky that Malachy came into Monaghan,” McManus states. “I suppose at the time we didn’t realise it. He was another manager that was on our list of maybe two or three, but he was the man we pursued and we got him. You didn’t realise what was coming in through your door. It wasn’t that he came in the first day and you were blown away.
“As a group, individually, personally, we were blessed to have Malachy.
“Would we have been as steady and as successful and consistent without Malachy? I don’t think so. Would I have been as successful and winning Ulster Championships and getting a few awards? I don’t believe so.
“He definitely got the best out of me. He just put a confidence in you where he had you walking on water.
“He can motivate you, he is a great man-manager, he’s very switched on, tactically. For those Ulster finals, we couldn’t have been any better prepared than what we were. The amount of time and effort we spent on the most minute details...
“It was like studying for an exam, knowing what’s coming and learning it off by heart and you just fire it all out. We were that confident because we had the work done. Leo [McBride] and Ryan [Porter] were excellent too, they worked so well together as a group.”
While McManus hasn’t landed Gaelic football’s greatest prize, Monaghan have gone close on a couple of occasions. Entering his 17th season, one of the greatest forwards of this era – or indeed any era - lives in hope.
On so many days and nights, Conor McManus wrote his own script. A master of his craft, he memorably ruined the Dubs in a one-man NFL show. He was a thorn in Tyrone’s side every time they played Monaghan.
His scorching point at Healy Park in 2018 was one of the greatest-ever Championship scores. And he left his mark on Kerry in an unforgettable Super 8s encounter the same year.
He was elemental to Monaghan’s Ulster title successes in 2013 and 2015.
Sean Cavanagh had the right idea in how to stop him.
“Some of things he could do were ridiculous,” says John McEntee, who won a championship as Clontibret manager in 2019.
“It’s just amazing to watch him strike a ball so cleanly. His pace and change of direction at full speed, his ability to think, that mental agility...
“When you think about it, he has three Allstars for a county that hasn’t been in the top five teams in the country.
“To win two Ulster titles and being able to bring others with him, especially when Monaghan probably didn’t have the same resources as others is just incredible, really.”
In the dying embers of an unbelievable Ulster Championship game against Armagh in Pairc Esler, 2021, he proved for the umpteenth time that he was the ultimate clutch player.
And yet the night before, Monaghan lost U20 captain Brendan Og Duffy in a terrible car accident – a tragedy that seems too horrific to countenance.
“I was sitting at home that evening, lying on the couch,” McManus remembers. “It was real warm weather, windows were open and I heard a bang, a noise. I didn’t pass any remark on it. I went on up to bed. I saw blue lights flashing; this was around half-10, 11 o’clock. The main road is not far from our house.
“The next morning, I just saw this message on my phone. Your heart sinks. Unthinkable. Unbearable. I’m going off to bed getting ready for a game. The only thing that matters is Newry and Armagh the following day – and this turmoil is going on 500 yards from the house and you’re oblivious to it.
“Four or five of the U20 lads that had been playing with Brendan Og the previous day were with us in Newry. He was their man, their friend, their captain and you know, what do you say to those boys?
“Everybody was heartbroken and everybody was engrossed in this game for the length of time it lasted…
“Once the game with Armagh ended you were back to dealing with Brendan Og’s passing. You were up at the house and his mother and father were so grateful to see you but you were thinking how were they getting on with this? So many young faces at a house, so many just trying to process it.”
The road to Dublin beckons on this Friday afternoon. Thirty-five on this day and still at the top of his game.
As he ponders the future he admits to fearing retirement “somewhat” and probably knows he shouldn’t be still playing at elite level because of an enduring hip problem that will inevitably need surgery once he calls time on his brilliant career.
But, for now, we should enjoy this footballing poet from the parish of Clontibret. Hard as nails and blessed with the hands and feet of an angel.
The Conor McManus legend rolls on – at least for another year…
