CAPTAIN CONOR MCMANUS has revealed how he personally implored each of Monaghan’s veteran players not to make any rash retirement decisions.

Newly crowned Allstar McManus admitted it ‘would have been a worry’ immediately after the All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Tyrone that a string of key players may quit.

Dick Clerkin, who played his first game for Monaghan in the 1990s, Vinny Corey, Owen Lennon, Paul Finlay and Dessie Mone all have huge Championship mileage racked up.

It’s a case of so far, so good for the Ulster title holders with no retirements yet announced though that is perhaps partly down to McManus.

The inspirational forward, who picked up his second Allstar award last weekend, admitted he asked each of the players in question to leave any decision until as late as January or February.

“I have spoken to them all, anybody that would maybe have been thinking about pulling the pin,” said McManus. “I just said to them, ‘Look, don’t make any decisions now, think about it. Take Christmas and get that out of the way and see.’

“The rest of the panel will get back to work in the next couple of weeks and we’ll crack on. If those boys decide they’re not coming back until the end of January, February, whatever the case is, nobody will be too annoyed about that.

“From my point of view, yes, I’m captain of the team but those boys have also been playing a lot longer than I have for Monaghan.

“All I can tell them is how I feel and how the rest of the panel would feel. I can’t tell them boys what to do. They’re old enough and playing long enough and know what’s right for them and their families and things like that.

“They have to think about that and weigh everything up but hopefully when the decisions are made, they will be good ones for Monaghan.”

Conor McManus is on International Rules duty this month. Gary Carr / INPHO Gary Carr / INPHO / INPHO

McManus himself is hoping to take his strong form on into 2016 despite an ongoing battle with hip trouble.

“I had surgery on it before, at the end of 2011, and it took me until the middle of 2012 to get back from it,” he explained. “To be honest, it’s not the kind of operation where you get it done and say, ‘okay, that’s fixed’.

“There’s a certain amount of rehab work you have to keep doing after it. That’s what I’m doing now, I’m doing the rehab and it’s keeping me ticking over and hopefully that will avoid having to go for any further surgeries.”

Monaghan were hugely frustrated to slip up to Tyrone in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, just like they also did in 2013.

But there have been plenty of reasons for cheer since. McManus picked up that AllStar award while he and county colleague Darren Hughes are in Ireland’s 23-man squad for the International Rules test.

A third Monaghan player, Kieran Hughes, is on Ireland’s stand by list for Saturday week’s Croke Park clash with Australia.

The record of Monaghan players at Croke Park is poor though with just one Championship match win there since 1930, last year’s qualifier defeat of Kildare. But McManus rubbished talk of a GAA headquarters hoodoo.

“With Monaghan, our Championship record hasn’t been good,” he said. “But I have won plenty of games there in various competitions, like the league, though obviously not as many as I’d have wanted. Any time you come to Croke Park you certainly want to win.

“But the only people who make an issue of it is the media. I think there is more made out of that than what needs to be, to be perfectly honest.”

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