Five things we learned this GAA weekend: Conor McManus will be revered forever, final or not

Inconsolable Conor McManus put everything on the line to beat Dublin

This time of year, life is raw down by the team buses. Everybody who gets this far can see the final so close they feel they must be able to touch it. But one crowd bounces on board, ready for the best fortnight of the season. The other slopes on to theirs, headed for a long winter.

On Saturday night, the last man out of the Monaghan dressingroom was Conor McManus. It was late, well over an hour after the final whistle. His eyes were red and he had to gather himself a couple of times during the chat. I’ve interviewed him dozens of times in the past 17 years – this was the first one that felt like an intrusion.

He doesn’t know if he’ll be back next year. His hips are in legendarily bad shape – “And playing intercounty football probably doesn’t help!” he said. But if he thinks he can, Monaghan will treasure him. “We won’t be turning them away anyway,” said Vinny Corey of him, Darren Hughes and Karl O’Connell, all of whom played the full 75 minutes on Saturday.

The 0-24 McManus scored in this year’s championship took him past the 300 mark. It will come as no real surprise to readers to be told that he is the first Monaghan player ever to do so – he’s the only one ever to pass the 200 mark as well.

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In fact, this summer moved him on to 9-282, pushing him for the first time on to a total that is more than twice that of the next man. Paul Finlay finished his Monaghan career on 0-151. Tommy Freeman scored 9-101. McManus has more than the pair of them combined.

But the numbers only tell the half of it. For those couple of minutes in the second half on Saturday when he scored that glorious point on the run and followed it up with a mark, the Monaghan crowd in the stadium absolutely believed he might be about to do it.

Those points drew Monaghan level on the hour mark and they had all the momentum. If they could just keep feeding him, then maybe. But they couldn’t and it wasn’t and he was inconsolable afterwards.

Whether he comes back or not, Monaghan people will revere him forever. – Malachy Clerkin

Colm O’Rourke gets everything he wanted from the Tailteann Cup

There will be a homecoming for the Meath footballers at Páirc Tailteann on Monday evening. Finally, kids in the county are getting some new heroes. Colm O’Rourke gained exactly what he would have wanted from the Tailteann Cup, blooding new players and generating a winning mentality within the group. Only Dublin and Kerry will have a longer season in 2023 than Meath and Down, there must be a benefit in that for both Tailteann Cup finalists.

Meath only had five players starting Saturday’s decider that lined out in their opening league game of the season against Cork. That’s quite the turnover and was only possible because the Royals found themselves in a jam. It wasn’t part of the plan to be plodding around in football’s secondary competition in O’Rourke’s first year, but to their credit they treated the Tailteann Cup seriously, identifying that it provided a developmental pathway for new and inexperienced players to make a mark.

In the week before the final both Meath and Down had media events where players and management were available, while there were also meet and greets for fans to come get photos and autographs – the kind of promotional activities we rarely see now at intercounty level. The first two years for the Tailteann Cup have been a success – thousands of Westmeath fans filled to streets of Mullingar for their homecoming last year.

The challenge for the GAA now is to maintain that momentum and ensure the competition continues to appeal to players in the years ahead. Meath will look to harness the momentum too and make inroads in the Sam Maguire competition next season. But while the vibes are good on both fronts right now, neither is guaranteed. – Gordon Manning

James McCarthy show off his athletic prowess

I ran into Conor McKeon of the neighbouring parish in Croke Park on Saturday, and we got talking about an article he’d penned that day about James McCarthy. Not just McCarthy the Dublin footballer, but McCarthy the potential Olympic runner.

It’s a fun but often touchy subject, not entirely hypothetical or irrelevant though as the game becomes increasingly Citius, Altius, Fortius, and McKeon certainly stirred it up again.

There’s no denying McCarthy’s exceptional fitness and unquestionable athleticism, the 33-year-old and eight-time All-Ireland winner providing ample evidence yet again against Monaghan. Particularly in the last quarter, right when Dublin needed more of his unforgiving runs from deep inside his own half.

McCarthy isn’t the only Dublin footballer with that sort of pure running potential; Jack McCaffrey for sure, and Brian Fenton could have been a contender for best runner to come out of Raheny since the Hooper brothers. McCarthy also holds another ace in athletic potential; he chose his parents wisely, his father John a three-time All-Ireland winner with Dublin.

In his article McKeon quotes Dr Niall Moyna, DCU’s Professor of Clinical Exercise Physiology, who references fitness testing carried out on the Dublin panel back in 2010, and specifically their VO2 Max, the traditional and still reliable measure of oxygen consumption and efficient transport around the body.

This has been going on since the 1970s, when US distance runner Steve Prefontaine recorded a VO2 Max of 84.4, still one of the highest ever, before US cyclist Greg LeMond reported testing at 92.5.

McCarthy’s VO2 Max came in at 74, certainly well about the norm for any Gaelic footballer, and Moyna reckoned had McCarthy trained specifically for running he could have reached the 80s, with the potential to break the Irish 800m record.

That might surprise Mark English, the current Irish record holder who ran 1:44.71 two years ago, narrowly eclipsing the previous mark which had stood to David Matthews since 1995. You don’t run 1:44 on VO2 Max alone.

Sometime early in his cycling career, Sean Kelly underwent a VO2 Max test, which reportedly came in a little lower than some of his team-mates.

“Ah, but does it measure suffering?” asked Kelly.

Indeed any Olympic runner will tell you that the ability to break through the pain barrier is the first ingredient required for success. Which is why I’m not so sure about McCarthy’s potential over 800m. To me he would have made a better 5,000m runner. – Ian O’Riordan

Big screen at Croke Park helps make the right call

A long time ago, August 2001 – so long ago, reporters were actually present – Central Council were deliberating on a suspension for then Cork manager Larry Tompkins when presiding GAA president, the late Seán McCague became irritated by the constant trilling of mobile phones.

“It’s like a flute band in here,” he snapped. “For God’s sake can you turn them off until the meeting’s over.”

In fact, the solemn news that Tompkins’s ban had survived a full-court press by Frank Murphy was inadvertently greeted by a tinny rendition of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. It wasn’t the only thing that irritated McCague that afternoon.

More significantly, during the debate on the suspension in which Frank’s forensic magic appeared to be having an impact, Wexford delegate and also the county hurling manager Tony Dempsey spoke fervently on the matter.

He declared that if it came down to a choice between “fair play and the rules”, his view was “to Hell with the rules”.

A smattering of applause persuaded the president that he must intervene.

“Now, Tony, you’ve had a great season with Wexford [All-Ireland semi-finalists] and everyone’s pleased for you but you can’t come in here as a member of Central Council and say, ‘to Hell with the rules.’”

Rebellion over, suspension upheld.

In the 65th minute of the All-Ireland semi-final on Saturday, a tussle for the ball between Dublin’s Jack McCaffrey and Monaghan’s Killian Lavelle ended with ball going out for a 45.

McCaffrey had been trying to race in along the endline and what initially looked like a textbook hand-in tackle, was revealed to be a physical challenge in which the Dublin player had spilled the ball out of play: a wide rather than a 45.

The problem for the original decision, signalled by the match officials, was that the big screen in the stadium showed the reality in vivid detail. Referee Seán Hurson didn’t hesitate and ruled that play restart with a kick-out.

RTÉ analyst Eamonn Fitzmaurice observed: “The correct decision was got to – whether it’s in the rule book or not, it’s the correct decision.”

Commentator Darragh Maloney echoed: “It’s the right call. VAR is not in the rule book but everyone in the stadium has seen it on the big screen.”

Few would have argued with the decision on Saturday afternoon despite its unorthodox prompt but should this be looked at with a view to formalising a referee’s power to take the television pictures into account?

When former GAA DG Páraic Duffy launched his discussion paper on the payment of managers a decade ago, he said that he had been struck by a public address in which historian Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh had drawn attention to the dangers for an organisation of having rules and not observing them.

Duffy was also the chair of the old Games Administration Committee and had advocated for the retention of the Tompkins ban that August 22 years ago. – Seán Moran

[ View from Hill 16: A Saturday evening flashpoint reminds us why this place must be protected ]

Derry don’t go down by dying wondering

After all the months of bellyaching about the state of football, look what we’ve ended up with. Once again, the Croke Park games have provided the best fix for the game’s ills. All the teams who came to contain and play slow, grinding football are gone. The ones who are left are the two sides who’ve pressed highest, taken the most risks, tried to turn the screw in the most heightened moments.

Derry manager Ciarán Meenagh gave a brilliant insight afterwards. He was lobbed a soft ball and asked if he thought all the commentary in the build-up had been unfair on his team. He had every chance to complain about his team being written off as defensive no-hopers. But he turned that on its head straight away.

“There has been a lot of punditry and a lot of commentary about our style of play and a lot of that is fair,” he said. “But that also created a lot of opportunity for us because Kerry might have looked like that as well. We decided we would really go for it.

“Look, our style of play was the same in terms of how we defended, we looked to build our attacks, we looked to play with urgency and intensity and when those openings came for the players, we were intent on going for it and we did.”

We can roll our eyes at the notion of Dublin and Kerry being the guardians of the game, etc. We can all see that blue bloods do their fair share of massed defending, that everybody gets lots of bodies back and jams up the running channels. But what the knock-out stages of the All-Ireland have shown is that you will ultimately pay for risk-free football.

Roscommon went out because they didn’t go for it on their last play against Cork. Armagh sat off Monaghan and paid for it in penalties. Galway didn’t make enough of the first-half wind against Mayo in Salthill. You can’t win an All-Ireland by trying not to lose it.

Derry knew that and came to Croke Park on Sunday with a game plan that was a thrilling departure from what they’ve been playing for the past two seasons. They didn’t die wondering. They didn’t make the final but they gave themselves the only real chance that they might.

There’s a lesson in there for everyone. – Malachy Clerkin