Talking the talk, but also walking the walk

Ulster SFC Final Tyrone v Monaghan: Keith Dugganchats with Tyrone's Ryan McMenamin ahead of tomorrow's decider

Ryan McMenamin will never have the imperious prowess of Kieran McGeeney or the consummate, play-anywhere versatility of Marc Ó Sé. There are no juvenile heroics to support the journey from childhood to his current place as one of the best defenders - and definitely the most talkative defender - in Gaelic football.

He has a devilish reputation for getting under the skin of opposing players and crowds. He has acquired the (undeserved) name of being a dirty player. He is not particularly big (at 5ft 10in) and does not go in for the bone-shuddering hits that have come to define the Ulster theatre. He is almost always given the task of shadowing the opposition team's most dangerous player. Colm Cooper. Steven McDonnell. Alan Brogan. Brendan Devenney - all these virtuoso scores men know the annoyance of being tailed by McMenamin. It is part being marked by an ultra-smart defender, part being followed around the field by your three-year-old nephew who will not shut up.

McMenamin talks on the field.

Talking is his motif.

It was no coincidence that he nominated Jive Talkin' by the Bee Gees as a favourite song during an interview with BBC Ulster last year.

As Peter Canavan remarked with nostalgia, "The first year Ryan was on the panel was lovely because he never spoke."

When he walked into the Glenavon hotel outside Cookstown, wearing neat jeans and a hooded top, McMenamin had that waif-like look of a young middle-distance runner and charmed the waitress in the café with the combination of the angelic, brown eyes he uses on referees and impeccable manners.

It was hard to know whether to grill him about episodes of defensive infamy or treat him to a chocolate milkshake. Instead, he nibbled at a chicken sandwich and sipped a glass of water as he talked about his place in the Tyrone team, the one team that seems constantly capable of reinventing itself.

"Mickey (Harte) expects you to use your brain. He expects you to be a smart footballer. At training, we work very hard at tackling. The way the modern game is going, you try to limit the frees if you can. Anyone can be a footballer, but to be a smart footballer is something different.

"He sets that standard. Most of the time I would be fairly composed. But then I have lost complete control the odd time. When I do lose it, there is always something bad comes of it.

"A fair few forwards would start at me and then, if I answer back, I always get the blame. I don't mind it. I chat back and smile at them. Sometimes I wouldn't acknowledge them."

Already, this year's All-Ireland championship has highlighted the best and worst of McMenamin. In the opening match, he was fuming at being taken off early against Fermanagh. He had already picked up a yellow card and a tick in trying to cope with the livewire Eamon Maguire. Harte told him he had been walking too much of a fine line.

In the Ulster semi-final, as the teams warmed up against Donegal, Harte called McMenamin to one side: "He told me what he expected of me and what he wanted me to do. Mickey doesn't point out your faults. He lets you work them out for yourself."

McMenamin responded with a performance that was part athletic supremacy and part Jim Carrey on speed. As a team, Tyrone were awesomely fluid and impressive, with Brian Dooher literally unstoppable and McMenamin at his animated best. He read the play like a dream, he carried ball forward, he guided Adrian Sweeney towards oblivion, and he manned centre back with authority.

Oh, and he talked. During a break in play, McMenamin began shouting, "They can't handle it lads," so loudly the entire stadium heard it. Shortly afterwards, he began calling, "I don't think they're coming back, boys."

As he spoke, he saw the Donegal midfielder Kevin Cassidy smiling at him and shaking his head. McMenamin is friendly with the Gweedore boys.

"There was nothing bad said. It was more to gee up our own boys. Eamon McGee would have been texting me after that game.

"And sure Cass . . . after we got knocked out of the championship by Laois last year, I was just on the bus when Cass was ringing to get me to come out to America. It was a case of, 'Hard luck. Let's go.' I was going, 'Hold on Cass, I'm kind of depressed here.' But he knows my form."

Back in the arena at Clones, Cassidy would have expected nothing less than this verbal one-upmanship. A few minutes later, the Donegal substitute Kevin McMenamin got himself sent off for firing the ball at McMenamin in frustration. Ryan smiled at the foolishness of it.

When the game had softened into an all-out Tyrone exhibition, McMenamin found himself standing beside the referee David Coldrick. He knew the Meathman from previous games and asked how long was left.

"Ten minutes, Ryan."

"What about you knocking it on the head in five and me and you will go to the pub."

Coldrick had to suppress the laughter and hissed, "Would you ever shut up," as he chased the play.

No, is the answer. He never will. It is just his style. He does not believe his talking makes him a leader. He nominates Conor Gormley, the baleful, brilliant centre back, as the natural candidate for that role in the Tyrone defensive division: "Conor would be a more silent type than me. But the look says it all."

McMenamin rejects, however, the notion he is a 'dirty' player. After all, Harte, a manager who hates conceding soft frees, would hardly task McMenamin with marking the best forwards in the game if he were a mere machete man. McMenamin uses his speed, his agility, his lightness and his tongue as defensive weapons.

He has to; most forwards he marks are bigger and stronger. He will get inside the heads of opponents and spend the match whispering to them like Mephistopheles - if they allow him to.

But it varies. Although he is friendly with McDonnell, hardly a word passes between them on the field. Cooper will say hello and that is it. Other players will begin taunting McMenamin as soon as he approaches. That is fine by him.

"I would say that 90 per cent of the time I am chatting to our boys, but it is the other 10 per cent that lands me in trouble."

Two highly publicised incidents gave his name a sprinkling of notoriety. He was the alleged culprit when Colm Cooper had a hand bitten in the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final.

More damning was the daft rush of blood to the head that provoked him to drop his knees onto a supine John McEntee in the 2005 Ulster final against Armagh.

"That looked bad. You just think, 'What was I at?' I watched the video afterwards and I was thinking, 'God, what am I doing here?'

"It was probably frustration, but at the time I don't even know what was going through my mind. It was just the thing of being in the position of winning the game and then losing it.

"Armagh were always a special opposition and there is a great respect between the teams. I don't know what happened then. Mickey stood by me where another manager would have thrown me to the wolves. He did a wild lot of work just to get me off."

Ryan McMenamin was born in Canada. His parents were Tyrone kids who reluctantly fled the Ulster of Stiff Little Fingers in search of work and a better life. For eight years, Ryan and his brother Rory were bone fide Canadians. He has distinct memories of afternoons sleighing on the mammoth, pristine hills of Alberta and Calgary and of watching ice hockey.

In the late 1980s, his folks faced the crossroads all emigrants reach sooner or later - Detroit or Dromore.

They went back.

When Ryan attended his first day at school, he felt like a distinguished visitor as even the teachers shook his hand and seemed impressed by the broad, Canadian accent. Tyrone, all dampness and green drumlins, looked like a weird landscape for a while.

"The fact that we had a pile of cousins made it easier. And I played football. You had to if you didn't want to be an outsider. I lost the accent after a few years. I was probably wise to lose it."

He became pure Tyrone. McMenamin was a promising young footballer, but always seemed a bit too light and laid back to attract real attention from the county bosses. He was on the fringe of the big time and wasn't that pushed either way.

In contrast, his friend and clubmate Paul McGirr was an up-and-coming god. Ryan was in the crowd when Paul was fatally injured against Armagh in the Ulster minor championship of 1999. They had arranged to hit the pubs in Cookstown that night.

"Paul was always smiling. He died doing what he loved. He was bubbly, he had a smart remark, and he would strut down the town with the chest out. That day, we were more worried that McGirr wouldn't be fit to go out.

"Then we got back to the town and heard he had died. It was hard to take in. And for Rita and Francie (Paul's parents) to see the boys that went on to play for the senior team over the years was very hard."

McMenamin never played minor or under-21 for Tyrone. He first advertised his fearless competitive streak when Dromore played Errigal Ciarán some months after Paul McGirr's passing in the 1999 championship. McMenamin, then an obscure clubman, marked Peter Canavan. He didn't give any lip.

"But the two of us got stuck into one another. I gave it to him and he gave it back."

After that, Danny Ball asked him in for a trial, but he was injured and couldn't attend so Ball said he would see him around. McMenamin gave his agreeable, stock reply - "That's 100 per cent, Danny" - and scooted back to the bright lights of Belfast.

It was not until Art McRory had a long and serious phone conversation with him than he began to think about his football prospects. He crept rather than burst into the Tyrone team, going through an intense period of trials under McRory.

Although he was natural-born yapper, McMenamin could also listen. Chris Lawn taught him plenty. Mickey Harte came along and changed the way he viewed the game.

"I was always willing to learn. I still am," he says.

He reckons now that Tyrone were sleepwalking between their wonderful display in the 2005 All-Ireland final and their flawless deconstruction of Donegal last month. The abiding message from Harte before that match was that their days in the Tyrone jersey were temporary and priceless.

McMenamin speaks highly of PJ Quinn and Damien McCaul as the next Tyrone corner backs and he is increasingly conscious of the legacy this team will leave.

Tragedy, a word so casually used in sport, has, of course, genuinely visited these Tyrone players in the deaths of McGirr and Cormac McAnallen. Even the miserable streak of injuries that has robbed Brian McGuigan of over a year of quality living has deepened McMenamin's resolve to make the most of the remaining years.

He trained for six nights per week prior to the Donegal tie. He works as a civil servant and coaches the Dromore under-16 teams. He enjoys the youngsters, their cheerful, cocky, take-me-as-you-see-me honesty.

Hours after his chastening substitution against Fermanagh, he received about 10 texts from his players telling him where he had gone wrong. In addition to disappointing them, he had committed the cardinal sin of costing them points in the Irish News fantasy football league.

"Whereas another man would pat you on the back, these young fellas will take note of what my man scored off me. They would keep you grounded."

Back in March, McMenamin noted that Monaghan were 12 to 1 to get to the Ulster final: "Scandalous odds. I am kicking myself I didn't have them at each way."

With the abrupt erasure of Armagh clearing the northern skies, Tyrone are the warmest favourites to reclaim Ulster tomorrow. McMenamin would love another provincial medal, but admits it is not the extent of their ambitions. "The questions we asked ourselves can't really be answered until September," he says seriously.

He talks knowledgably and warmly about the other All-Ireland contender teams, reminiscing about a great night he spent in Dublin last February with the city players following the floodlights extravaganza in Croke Park (when he was sent off).

What you have already probably heard is true: Ryan McMenamin, the scourge of forwards and referees, is the kind of pleasant young man who in real life escorts old ladies on zebra crossings. Maybe on the football field he becomes a changeling. So be it. He does what comes naturally to him.

Mickey Harte's words reverberate through his soul this summer.

None of them will be with Tyrone forever. Ryan McMenamin just wants to chase excellence while he still can. Some day, when the football is over, he would like to return to Canada. But Calgary can wait. So can Heaven. The man has a reputation to uphold.