Conor McManus has been declared fit for the first round of Monaghan's Ulster SFC defence against Down on Sunday week.

There were concerns over the Clontibret star after he picked up a knock which left him limping towards the end of his club's championship defeat to Ballybay recently, but the two-time All Star winner has since been cleared to play against the Mourne men.

U21 ace Barry McGinn is also set to be available for the clash in Clones after recovering from a shoulder injury, while manager Malachy O'Rourke has confirmed that veterans Paul Finlay and Dick Clerkin will be in the panel after seeing minimal action during the National League.

"There's no doubt they do," O'Rourke told The Irish News.  

"Paul wasn't in the panel [for the league], he only came back in. We did that deliberately because we want him coming back in fresh this year. We felt maybe, in the last couple of years, he had played a lot of league football and maybe wasn't as fresh later in the year, so we want to give him the best possible chance of being fresh at the right time of year. 

"Dick was injured throughout the whole league, recovering from an ankle injury and then he damaged an eye socket during a collision in training, but the boys are training hard."

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