Conor McManus: Monaghan must now sink or swim without old heroes

Captain Conor McManus admits the departures of Dick Clerkin and Paul Finlay will affect the Monaghan set-up, but has put it up to his younger team-mates to make up an experience deficit in 2017 and make amends for this year’s disappointment.

The county exited the championship cheaply at the hands of Longford in the qualifiers although the magnitude of their Ulster semi-final bouts against Donegal, especially the replay defeat just a week earlier, had taxed them.

Malachy O’Rourke has chosen to stick around but without the veterans Clerkin and Finlay. McManus says the slack in leadership has to be picked up by the younger members of the panel.