Sitting in a Ballsbridge office on a Thursday morning - while everyone else around is doing their regular day job - Conor McManus understands the importance of having a flexible employer while maintaining an inter-county career.
McManus was at EirGrid headquarters to pick up the Irish Player of the Series award for the recent International Rules trip to Australia. Based in Dublin, he would normally have been at work with property services company MCR.
"They are very good to me in terms of taking time off to get away for the rules and different mornings like this. Always nice to have a bit of flexibility. It’s certainly a big thing." says McManus.
The demands on GAA players now from when I started training with Monaghan in 2006 is completely different. It’s a completely different game, it’s a completely different setup and everything you do is evolved around your training sessions or your games and your nutrition or whatever the case is.
The amount of time and commitment that goes into gym sessions, nutrition and recovery; all these wee extra things that 10 or 15 years ago were unheard of. All county teams are at it, I think all the teams are nearly as prepared as they can be in terms of nutrition, strength and conditioning and all that.
You are talking about having a boss that knows the story and MCR was on the back of the Donegal jersey there for two years so they are no strangers to football. For me it helped.
McManus believes that demands on GAA players have reached a peak, that they cannot become much greater without Gaelic games going professional.
"It’s hard to see how much further it can go. If this is where it’s at and players are juggling and managing as they are at the minute, it probably is [sustainable].
It’s just hard to see what more players can do at the minute without going professional so I’d say it’s probably... maybe I’m wrong maybe in 10 or 15 years we’ll be looking back and saying this was only half of it but I can’t really see it going too much more without it going professional; which isn’t going to happen so I think it is where it’s at and it’s got to its peak."
Conor McManus was presented by EirGrid with the Irish International Rules Player of the Series trophy today. Conor was selected by the public as the Player of the Series for his performances during the teams trip to Australia. As part of the prize, EirGrid donated a cheque for €1,000 to Conor’s club, Clontibret O'Neills.
