Conor McManus: Monaghan belong at top table

By Brendan O’Brien

Conor McManus believes Monaghan are at football’s top table to stay and sees no reason why manager Malachy O’Rourke and his colleagues on the senior panel won’t hang around next year in a bid to make that elusive All-Ireland final.

The Ulster county fell one point short of Tyrone in the semi-final earlier this month and, with the team failing to hit the heights reached in the Super 8, the Clontibret forward admitted to a sense of lingering regret.

“Chance missed, surely. There’s no doubt about that. We have been knocking on the door a while now to get through to the semi-final and press on to the final. We obviously didn’t do it but, when you look at it objectively, you have to think that that is where you are now.

“That is where you belong and you just have to kick on and press on again next year. That has to be what you take out of it.

“Yes, it’s a chance missed, and there is nothing you would like more than to be getting ready for an All-Ireland final, but that’s where you belong now.”

O’Rourke has delivered two Ulster titles and made Monaghan a main player on the national stage since taking over late in 2012. The second-longest serving manager in football, he is highly regarded by the squad and in the sport at large.

“Hopefully there is no changes of any sort,” said McManus.

“Bring a few young lads in and hopefully go again. That has to be the key. You can look back at a lot of teams over the years, the breakthrough doesn’t come in one, two, three, four, or five years.

“It can take a lot more than that and this team has been knocking on the door a while now. I feel as if we are playing as well as we ever played over the last six years under Malachy. If we can improve again who knows where next year could bring us?”