Conor Meyler profile: ‘He’s as close to Brian Dooher as you can get’

Conor Meyler has been a revelation for Tyrone this season. If man-marking jobs weren’t so underappreciated, he’d be among the favourites for Footballer of the Year

Conor Meyler may be one of the least-known Tyrone players but he is also probably one of the most interesting — and effective. This season the influence of Cavan’s Martin Reilly, Donegal’s Ryan McHugh, Ryan McAnespie of Monaghan, and Kerry’s Paudie Clifford, have all been nullified by Meyler. Picture: Inpho/James Crombie

Mid-April last year, when the rest of the world was baking banana bread and wiping their shopping down with Dettol, Seanie Meyler decided to mark his 54th birthday a little differently than others.

The planet was gripped by a pandemic and terror was everywhere. Not least in the Meyler home, where Seanie’s wife Paula works as a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit in the South West Acute Hospital.

He had read about the Mayo hurler Cathal Freeman running a marathon while soloing a sliotar and raising money for the Irish Cancer Society. On a whim, he went out to his treadmill, kept in the garden shed, and ran 10 miles.

He hit upon the idea of raising money for Paula’s unit in the hospital. Nine days later he did the full 26.2 miles, steam flying out the door of the garden shed, with over £20,000 raised.

While he had been a runner all his life, and a footballer with Tyrone that won the Ulster title in 1989, he hadn’t covered that kind of distance in a couple of years.

“It was about 17 miles in that I realised,” he explained.

“You know that your legs are starting to feel sore. So you then go into ‘purpose’ — the reason why you are doing this. You switch your thoughts away from the soreness and you focus on the purpose.”

A homemade sign facing Seanie in the shed had a simple message: ‘Remember Why’.

“Yes, remember why — why am I doing this?” he said. “Because the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ are easy. It is the ‘why’ that moves people.”

By now, you’d realise where his son Conor gets it from. One of the least-known Tyrone players, he is also probably one of the most interesting.

You will know him by the trail of neutered attackers this year. They may not be strike-forwards, but Cavan’s Martin Reilly, Donegal’s Ryan McHugh, Ryan McAnespie of Monaghan,and Kerry’s Paudie Clifford are the genesis of each teams’ attack. It has been Meyler’s job to go out and — in the words of his former Tyrone coach Gavin Devlin — “delete” them from the game.

In each case, no trace remains. If man-marking jobs weren’t so underappreciated, he’d be among the favourites for Footballer of the Year.

Resilience runs through the family like a stick of rock. In 1982, the 15-year-old Seanie watched his father, Sean snr, complete the Dublin marathon in under three hours. Conor’s V8 engine, the one that left Dara Moynihan for dead in one memorable phase of play in the All-Ireland semi-final, is one which is handed down through genetics.

“Meyler has the legs, the energy, and the endurance to run, and keep with any player. But the key is that while he is tuned in to doing that, he doesn’t think that is enough,” says Devlin, who had been coaching him since he broke into the Tyrone team in 2015.

“Sometimes when you are deleting somebody, you are hands-on and hands-on. And then it’s an afterthought when we get it and I don’t think that works too well.

“Against Kerry the last day, he was getting the ball and beating men whenever we had possession and that really hurts the opposition. He has the energy to do it.”

He continues, “This year he has been immense, particularly against Kerry and no doubt he will need to bring that energy to the Mayo game as well.

“That’s a big task. Whenever you go out to play on a team’s main threat, you do need a breather. It’s not easy going the other way as well.

“But Meyler can. His engine is awesome. Bar Brian Dooher, I have never seen a player with as much aerobic capacity in my life.”

The Dooher comparisons would not end with just his ability to run.

At the end of Tyrone’s Super 8s win over Donegal in 2018, he went down with a broken tibia. The medical advice was that he would be out for 12 weeks.

Each night, he slept in an oxygen tent. He changed his nutrition. He used machines to help the density of the bone. He attended rehabilitation sessions three times a day and was in Omagh pool every day.

After three weeks, he could run on it. He had six days of running and training and then he ran out on September 2 for the All-Ireland final and a man-marking job on Brian Fenton. 12 weeks had been cut to four.

“He’s as close to Brian Dooher as you can get. I spent several years playing with Brian Dooher. I had to go with him to train when I was injured, to train four or five months at a time,” recalls Devlin.

I know a lot about him and Meyler is as close to him as you can get. That’s something to say. I never thought you would see another Brian Dooher in the same way I think you would never see another Peter Canavan.

“But Meyler is close to him, mentality-wise the way he prepares, his work ethic on and off the field. He’s the unsung hero on that team.”

In completing a Masters of Education in DCU, his central theme of study was on “resilience”. He was his own best case study. Throughout his underage career, Seanie was coaching his age group. Conor was often left in the ‘B’ team to get more game time.

Alongside this, cross-country running expanded his lungs. Track training got his fast-twitch fibres going. Football was gaining a bit of traction however and by 17 he had to make a choice.

He went for a trial with Tyrone minors, but when the panel went up on the website, his name wasn’t there. After he played a few games of senior football for Omagh, they sent him off to the reserve team.

“All those wee things, you probably take it personally and use it to motivate yourself,” he said in 2019.

“I think that’s helped over the years, dealing with those setbacks. Talking to children at camps these days about setbacks and resilience, I don’t think they fully understand how important it is at a younger age to deal with these things.

“You can look and blame other people and make excuses, this ‘victim mentality’ that it’s everyone else’s fault, or you can do something about it yourself. I would be more that way inclined.”

Two years after not making the county minors, he played against Kerry in the 2015 All-Ireland senior semi-final.

Former Tyrone player Noel McGinn knew the family well. As well as travelling to and from games and training with Seanie, their two wives worked together.

As principal of a Primary School in Greencastle, occasionally he was left short-handed with staff. After Conor had completed his qualifications with St Mary’s College, McGinn knew what number to call on such occasion.

“I would be there at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, most of the staff would be gone at that stage and I would be tidying up and getting ready for the next day. The next thing the door would be knocked at ten to five, Conor asking, ‘Is there anything else you want me to do, Mr McGinn?’

“You know, polite, courteous, professional, all of those things and if I had have said, ‘Look Conor, I need milk for my coffee in the morning,’ he would have jogged across to McCullagh’s shop!

“He was just such a good lad. A great example to anyone starting off in teaching, the characteristics and qualities you would need.”

It’s a measure of him that the same authenticity he displays while on what would consider a ‘handy’ day of teaching relief, he brings to the football field.

“I am so envious of his engine. I cannot get over the amount of work he does on a football field. When I had him at school, I realised the work he does on a football field is exactly replicated in the classroom.”

When McGinn was a mere teenager himself, he used to watch Conor’s grandfather pound the roads around Omagh, long before the idea of running as recreation was seen as in any way sane.

“To be an endurance runner you have to be a certain type of person. Very single-minded, very focused, you have to be able to endure pain. You have to put up with all the stages of a marathon, hitting the wall occasionally. Under-performing occasionally, and bouncing back,” McGinn explains.

“Resilience is so, so important. Sean senior had it, Seanie had it and Conor has it in spades. What sets Conor apart is that he plays with a great footballing ability as well.” Watching the semi-final, and Meyler’s job on Paudie Clifford, McGinn found himself in the Croke Park press box chuckling to himself, likening it to the famous ‘Mirror Scene’ in the Marx Brother’s movie ‘Duck Soup.’ “Every time that Paudie Clifford turned, he was face to face with Conor Meyler.

“That’s the image I had. I thought it was very comical, only it wasn’t funny for Paudie Clifford.”