Minding his house

Enda McManus

Age: 27.

Height: 6' 0".

Occupation: Store manager.

Club: St Peter's Dunboyne.

Honours: 1 All-Ireland SFC (1996); 2 Leinster SFC (1996, '99); 1 All-Ireland under-21 (1993); 1 All-Ireland MFC (1990); 1 NFL (1994); 1 Meath SFC (1998).

It is sometimes forgotten that Enda McManus and Graham Geraghty were a pair back at the start of the decade. Both graduated from successful underage teams and made the Meath seniors by 1992. In fact, McManus's championship debut came first.

Captain of the All-Ireland winning minors in 1990, McManus looked to be on the verge of a long and successful senior career. Yet along the way, there were complications. Meath's team of the 1980s was slowly disintegrating and the question was where to play him. Full back, corner back, wing back?

By comparison Geraghty's star was in the ascendant. A pacy wing back with a flair for going forward, he became the player to look to when plotting Meath's future. Yet records will show if Meath are successful on Sunday that McManus pivoted two All-Ireland winning defences whereas Geraghty hasn't entirely stamped his authority on any position since his move to the forwards.

It was thought in his early career that a lack of pace might come against McManus, especially when he was relocated to centre back at the start of the 1996 championship during which Sean Boylan's experimental team evolved into All-Ireland champions.

In many ways a classical Meath centre back, McManus attends to his man and his space. By playing as a stopper, he gives definition to his line and the defence.

A confident player, he stuck to his guns in the 1996 All-Ireland final and replay when marking Mayo's Colm McManamon whose roving centre forward play had been a feature of the county's progress that year.

The shortcomings of the strategy were exposed by McManus's refusal to move and leave a gap in the centre of his defence. He let his man roam and tidied up as McManamon frequently fed the ball into space he himself had vacated.

This year McManus has been part of a more focused team effort. Meath lost out in recent years, on his own admission, because of in-discipline which cost them Brendan Reilly in the Leinster final defeat by Kildare last year and saw them devastated by suspensions in the previous year's provincial final against Offaly.

"At the beginning of the year, we decided if we stayed disciplined we shouldn't have any problems," he says. And that has been the story of the season.