By John Harrington

John Paul Mone’s memories of a young Conor McManus are vivid.

He can still picture the slip of a nine-year-old coming to Clontibret senior football team training session every night with his father, long serving club secretary Frank.

Mone recalls that if a senior player kicked a ball to Conor, his face would immediately light up and “you could see a wee glint in his eye”.

Rather than be nervous about executing a skill in front of the senior players, the young McManus wanted them to give him that size five.

And then, kicking off both feet, he’d send it back to them with interest.

That desire to get his hands on the ball and then deliver under pressure has been one of the defining characteristics of Conor McManus throughout his inter-county football career with Monaghan.

The ultimate clutch player, his knack for producing big plays in the most pressurised of moments came to the fore yet again in the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final against Armagh.

Rian O’Neill looked to have won the match for Armagh in the final minute of injury-time in extra-time, but even if most people in the stadium thought the tie was settled, McManus certainly didn’t.

In the final play of the match he got himself in a position where he could get possession, drove at the Armagh defence, and won a free he converted himself to bring the game to penalties.

And then, in the shoot-out that followed, he converted two of the most ruthless penalties you’ll ever see, hammering the ball in to one top corner and then the other.

Watching on from the stand, Mone, wasn’t the least bit surprised that when Monaghan’s need was greatest it was his former club and county team-mate who once again stepped into the breach.

“It's not that he knows that he's the man, it's just his natural instinct,” says Mone. “That's what players of that type in any sport do.

“I know my own boys have watched The Last Dance around 15 times on Netflix. Someone like Michael Jordan wanted the ball in those situations, he demanded the ball in those moments because he was ultra-competitive, and Conor is like that too.

“It's not an ego thing, it's just a natural instinct. Give me the ball, I want the ball. Conor just doesn't hide, and that's one thing I can tell you for certain from playing alongside him with club and county, he never hides in a game. Even when it's going against him, you could never say that Conor has ever hid in a game.

“Then, when it comes to those type of moments in a game when it's do or die stuff, he is looking for that ball.

“For that Armagh match I was sitting beside a fellow club-man who is a good friend of Conor's and when Rian O'Neill got that point the two of us buried our heads in our hands. Then 10 seconds later the two of us were shouting from the stand, 'Give it to Conor! Just get it to Conor!'

“Thankfully they were able to get it to Conor. People could say he bought the free, but, to be honest, Conor knew exactly what he was going to do. He wasn't handing that ball off to someone else. When he got that ball the natural instinct of the Armagh defence was to think, 'Oh f**k, Conor McManus has it'.

“Conor ran down their throat and he knew there were only going to be two outcomes. He was going to try to get the shot off, or they were going to have to pull him down before he got the shot off and that's what happened. He got that free.

“But then to kick it as if he was just down in the local pitch, 30 yards out, just took his breath, a couple of steps back, and over the bar. I've seen that umpteen times.”

Malachy O’Rourke, who managed Monaghan for seven years from 2013 to 2019, winning two Ulster titles, was no more surprised than Mone by McManus’ heroics.

Throughout his time in charge McManus was the team’s postman, he always delivered.

“The more pressure was on and the bigger the prize the more he wanted to be there, the more he wanted to have the ball in his hand and take that kick and that obviously was a massive quality he had,” says O’Rourke.

“It often gets to a stage in a match where some players don't exactly shirk the challenge, but would prefer not to have that last kick to win the game or that last kick to draw the game.

“Whereas Conor was always the type of player who wanted to be there, who wanted that chance. That didn't faze him at all and it was very much what he craved.

“That stood to him and in those clutch moments he has so often been the player who has won the game for Monaghan or saved them on different occasions.

“Again, that's a massive thing to have because you can have all the talent and skill in the world, but unless you have that really strong mentality when it comes to the crunch moment that's what's very important as well.”

The inverse of that statement is equally valid. You can have the steeliest mentality of anyone on your team but it’s unlikely to be enough to pull games out of the fire in clutch moments if you don’t have the skill to execute those big plays.

In terms of pure ability, McManus is one of the most complete forwards of his generation. He has the instinct to be in the right place most of the time, is a powerful ball-winner, and an absolutely lethal finisher even in the tightest of spaces.

“There's a couple of things about Conor,” says O’Rourke. “He has a very high level of fitness. Sometimes corner-forwards are quick but they don't necessarily have good aerobic endurance.

“But Conor was always extremely fit so even though he picked up a few injuries and obviously the hip injury curtailed him a bit, he was always able to come back and be in really good shape which helped him, and then he had that natural speed as well.

“He also has a very well-honed technique. He seems to be able to get the ball from his hand to his foot very quickly, and certainly quicker than most players.

“That meant that in those tight situations when he hasn't much time he was able to get a shot away very quickly and would be very rarely blocked down. That certainly helped him.

“As well as that, he would have done an awful lot of work on his own. An awful lot of kicking practice and there's not doubt that helps him.

“He had a very strong kick. With some forwards the ball just about drops over the bar, but always liked to get his foot right through the ball, even taking frees and certainly made no mistake.”

Everyone in Clontibret will tell you that McManus’ mastery of all skills is no happy accident. It’s the product of relentless repetition.

His father Frank erected a set of goalposts in the field beside their house and throughout Conor’s youth spent countless hours out there with him, feeding him footballs as his son kicked points off left and right.

Clontibret’s club grounds has long been a second-home too. Conor McManus with a bag of balls has been a local landmark for the best part of 20 years now.

“I'm heavily involved with juvenile coaching in Clontibret and I'm constantly using Conor as an example about why it's not about just being there two nights a week at training and then a game at the weekend, it's about everything you do outside of that,” says Mone.

“I often would use Conor as an example because when I'm saying that, who's over in the other field with a bag of balls? Conor. You think he's done it all and kicked it all and can do it with his eyes closed, but he's never stopped.

“Even as he's gotten older he's learned to adapt his training. He was very slight when he started off and Conor will tell you himself he had to get serious. If you want to be a top competitor at inter-county level whatever about club level, he needed to work on his body as regards his physical development and he's done that continuously.

“Injuries, yes, have caught up with him. And I know exactly the type of injuries, but he's not the type to say, 'well that's that'. He's learned to adapt his training so that he can still extract the maximum out of himself. A big part of his routine is now prehabbing and rehabbing.

“He doesn't train the way he used to train when he was in his mid-twenties. He's been able to fine-tune it that he can still extract that maximum out of himself and get the best out of his own physical self and still be out there with a bag of balls and honing the skills and practicing.”

McManus worked assiduously to build up his body, but from a young age he had a natural toughness that has served him well. No matter how hard you gave it to him, he’d always come back for more.

“In 2006 we won the senior championship and I remember the following day we were celebrating and there were a few papers being floated about and the Irish News was being floated back from the bar,” recalls Mone.

“Colm was sitting beside me when I opened it up and there was a photo of Conor and a guy called Francie Dougan who was a big, strong midfielder from Magheracloone who we beat in that final.

“Francie absolutely lifted Conor clean out of it with a shoulder. Conor was sideways in the air with the ankles pointing up, kind of thing. I remember it happening at the time in the match and Conor just bounced straight back up as if nothing had happened. So he was very slight, but very hardy.

“You can still see that hardiness in him but people don't always appreciate it. They see what Conor does when he's on the ball, but probably just the way football is, people follow the ball and don't appreciate the attention Conor gets when the ball is not there.

“He's had to learn to take that and I've never heard him complain about the attention or abuse he gets. He just gets on with it and that's a skill.

“That's what these top forwards like Conor and David Clifford do. They can consistently go out and perform even though they get this extra attention. Conor certainly has done that and honed that as part of his game."

Over the years, defenders have tried many different ways to stop McManus, foul as well as fair, but neither physical nor verbal intimidation has worked.

In the heat of battle the Clontibret’s man blood runs cold, and nothing distracts him from the task of raising white and green flags to get his team over the line.

“Despite having a real competitive edge to him, he wouldn't be the type of fella who would go into the sledging end of things,” says O’Rourke.

“That was never part of his game and that goes back to his upbringing, his family, he's got really good values.

“Defenders will try different things to get a wee edge over a forward but I remember Neil McGee saying once that after a while he realised he could talk away to Conor but it wouldn't do him any good so there was little point to it.

“Conor just has that mental edge about him and that sort of thing wasn't going to upset him.

“He realised as well that as a corner-forward there could be a large part of the game where the ball wasn't coming near him and he wasn't going to be able to influence the game but he had the temperament to stay cool, stay composed, hold his ground, knowing it could be the last 10 minutes of the game when his chance will arrive and he had to be ready to take it.

“That was one of the big things he had, he remained patient, he remained calm, and then was able to do the business when was needed.”

McManus might be cold on the pitch, but off it he’s a warm personality. On All-Star and International Rules trips there are few players who mix as well with others.

Former Donegal footballer, Michael Murphy, gave a glowing commendation of Conor McManus the person as well as footballer in a recent Newstalk interview, and his words would likely be echoed by all team-mates and opponents alike.

In Clontibret he’s loved, and not just for all the heroics he’s performed on the pitch in their colours. They take just as much pride in the fact that he’s a solid citizen off it.

“The general Joe Public will see glimpses of him in a match and maybe in an interview after the game or the odd newspaper interview, but you can never really get a personality from that type of thing,” says Mone.

“It's only when you're in somebody's company on a number of occasions or once or twice that you really get a glimpse into it. Conor is a genuine clubman first and foremost and he's probably lucky that he's from such a grounded family. His father is very like that. His mother is quietly spoken and his father is football club to the core and so are his sisters, everything revolves around football.

“Conor would never ever have gotten ahead of himself. The people he has surrounded himself with, and this reflects a lot on the person too, but the people Conor has surrounded himself with would never let him get ahead of himself. He wouldn't be long being brought back down to earth if he did, but it would never happen.

“We've a lot of good people in the club and Conor is one of them and that's how he projects himself in life. He's a really good lad. I talk about the club a lot when I talk about Conor because, yes, he's done fantastic things with the county but the club is a very important part of his life as well.

“When I was involved with U-15 teams a few years ago Conor was one of my selectors. County players can get a bit of stick sometimes that they're in a bubble, and, Jesus, don’t go near them or ask them for anything because they're off playing county, but Conor is the complete opposite.

“He's always on the sideline at club matches and as thick and as frustrated and as interested and giving advice as much as any selector or any manager.

“And he's done that throughout over the last 10 or 12 years. If you ask Conor could he come down to the field and give a bunch of juveniles a wee bit of advice on free-taking, not a problem. He comes down and does his thing. If you ask him to come down for half an hour, he's with them for 70 minutes.”

Mone, much to his regret, won’t be in Croke Park tomorrow. His RAMfit business is bringing him to the Los Angeles Convention Center, so the plan is to find quiet corner tomorrow morning where he can watch the game online.

Monaghan go into the game against Dublin as the ultimate underdogs, but Mone isn’t without hope that he’ll be shouting at his screen to get the ball to Conor in the dying moments again.

“If you had said at the start of the year that Monaghan would play the majority of their league and championship matches with a 50 per cent Conor on the field and get to an All-Ireland semi-final, you'd be saying, 'not a chance’,” he says.

“As I said earlier, as Conor has gotten older and injuries have caught up with him, he's had to learn how to train slightly different and adapt his body slightly different, and this is just another part of it.

“Monaghan have had to adapt to use Conor to get the best out of himself and the best for Monaghan as well. And that has been proven correct by the effect that he has had on the team and what he has done when he's been on the pitch.

“Yes, Dublin are overwhelming favourites and deservedly so for all they've done. But one thing I would say is that if Monaghan are in the game with 10 minutes to go, and if Conor McManus is on the pitch, he’ll be looking for that ball and Monaghan will have a serious chance of winning the game.”