That's not meant in any bad way, it's just what he wants is simple and what he does is simple. As proof have a read of the next few lines.

He travels from Clare for training, but never complains.

He works long hard hours at Moneypoint and takes it as the path he's chosen. He practises with his housemate in Ennis when Offaly aren't there. He spends 80 a week on fruit. He helps his dad out on the farm on Sundays when he's not playing. He talks of things like the jersey and pride.

Problem is, Ciaran McManus is from Offaly. Tubber to be exact but it's the Offaly part that causes the dilemma. See, nothing is ever simple with Offaly. Again, read on. There's been a spate of managers that have come and gone. There was the Westmeath point that never was. There were all those near-misses. That's before we mention the row with the county board. The lack of support from on high. The jerseys they couldn't swap.

The money they forked out themselves. The players' strike. Joe Brolly. Even after winning a Leinster quarterfinal there were complications. The whole lot has been a trudge.

Take this. It's two weeks before the Kildare game and Offaly are just finished training. Ciaran McManus emerges from the shower and overhears a conversation about blood substitutions. He joins in and they all laugh because they realise that technically, the way things stand, you could change your entire team during a game.

Kevin Kilmurray is there.

Gerry Cooney is there. And the debate rages on over a late meal. By the end of it, Cooney has gone to check the rule and makes sure he's well aware of what can and can't be done. Two weeks later, they are laughing in a Croke Park dressing room about the irony. Then McManus realises this is Offaly and this is going to drag on. His face pales. Did you use six subs Ciaran?

"No. I've been asked 1,000 times so I'm nearly like a solicitor. All I can say is we thought we were right on the day, and it's proven we were right. But to be honest, it was frustrating how long Kildare dragged it on because they ruined our training for a few weeks. We'd be training hard and the next thing is Portlaoise are getting ready to stage a replay of the game.

This man that runs the shop in Laois has gone and bought the confectionery and the next thing the word is out. I should have kept the amount of text messages I had. Everyone heard something. Anyway, it's over now and thank God it is."

The latest chapter of his Offaly career closed with a thud and smudged ink. But maybe he should have known what he was getting himself into. He made his debut for the county having been spotted as an under-21. At that stage he couldn't make the minor panel despite being underage. Maybe it was because Tubber was a small club. Maybe it was because of some internal politics. Either way it pointed bluntly to the future.

"We won a Leinster in 1997 and went on to win a league.

But we felt definitely two or three years after that we'd missed a lot of chances to win Leinster again and probably go a bit further. But we were unlucky. The chances we have missed depress me though.

They'd depress any Offaly supporter. Looking back. . ."

Take this decade alone.

In 2000 it took Kildare a replay to get over Offaly on their way to a Leinster title. In 2001 they went out to Dublin by just two points. There was another replay defeat to Kildare, this time by just a point, a replay defeat against Laois, controversy in a one-point loss to Westmeath and last year, a last-gasp Laois goal saw it all happen again.

"That was the worst I think. We played brilliant for 60 minutes against Laois and then blew it in 10. At that stage we were after getting all the support from everyone after all that had happened and I thought we were the ones that were under pressure to make sure we got the results.

Everyone else delivered and then there was us. The players were the final part of the jigsaw and we let everyone down. And coming close is no consolation. None whatsoever. I have nothing to show for it. No medals, just hardluck stories. In 10 years' time, hopefully if I have kids I want to show them medals, not sit there telling them about nearmisses and losing. I want videos of Offaly winning.

Hard-luck stories are no good to me."

That Laois defeat last year was the worst because of what they had all endured.

In 2004 Gerry Fahy took the side to a Division Two title before exiting the championship to Westmeath and ultimately Wexford. At a county board meeting Fahy and his selectors Matt Connor and Mark Plunkett stepped down after being ratified by just a single vote. The weight on the players up to that point had been colossal. Both they and Fahy had been partly paying for training out of their own pocket. Before that Westmeath game, the team were told not to exchange their jerseys at the finish. No changing rooms or shower facilities had been provided at times while a request from Fahy for a small number of hotel rooms for massage and medical purposes had been refused. This was an ounce too much and the roof caved.

Depending on who you believe, McManus may have been medic or he may have been general in the strike that followed.

"I thought Gerry and his management were very good.

They worked hard with the players individually. Great passion as well. The first thing he ever did was tell us that you treat that jersey with respect. When a manager comes in and shows that sort of respect for a jersey that's not his own, you have respect for him immediately. A few of us had been there for a long time and it was getting to the stage where we were getting beaten all the time and lads were starting to lose heart. So he put a bit of passion back into it straight away. Then we had a good Division Two in '04. I think some people thought management could have done better against Westmeath in Leinster. It was only their first year though.

"And the players were 100 per cent behind him. I remember the meetings in some of the lads' houses. We set up a committee and everything because we felt things were going the wrong way and people didn't have the best interests of Offaly at heart.

Especially in dropping this management. I think it was a bit dramatised in the press afterwards though. It wasn't supposed to go that high. We were just wanting to highlight the fact that we were putting up with this, and now why were they getting rid of our management. It's tinged with a bit of spite maybe as well, but looking back on it, things had to be said."

What about the support the players got from the county board?

"There were two issues that were separate. There was the management thing and there was a player welfare issue. As regards the second one, we've always accepted in Offaly we are a small county. The funds just aren't there. There are little things that shouldn't be accepted though and that's what we wanted to highlight.

Things like the jerseys. That incident didn't bother me but it bothered other players.

After a year of hard work they couldn't even swap their own jersey. It's unfortunate we made the stand perhaps because you don't want to get people you work with in trouble and a lot of those people are still there and they really have Offaly interests at heart but there was a conflict there which was resolved."

Did that whole experience affect results?

"Well, when you read books like those by Lance Armstrong, by people who succeed, everything has to be right. The support they get from behind the scenes, everything must click for them to be winners. When some people aren't behind you and when there are problems in the background, it can drift into the mind. It affects your thinking in the lead-up to games or before games, and when players sit down together, it's amazing how one player can say maybe the gear issue bothers him and then it snowballs and the next thing it's bothering lots of players. So you have to get rid of that and the only way to do that is to get rid of these problems."

Eventually both sides kissed and made up but the problems didn't end there.

Kevin Kilmurray came in and heard his voice echo in the dressing room. Another new style left the players unsure of him and left him unsure of where he stood. "Kevin would be coming from an Offaly background from the '70s and he was drawing on from when he was playing. There was Gerry Cooney too and then Ginger Stewart [as selectors] who I would have played with and it was different working with a lad who was on a team with you. Staying in Division One last year was a great achievement but what followed was a disaster."

This year, the opening round in Leinster wasn't.

Sure, The Sunday Game viewers had a siesta during Offaly's defeat of Westmeath but Joe Brolly still saw fit to attack McManus. The midfielder got text messages about it afterwards but couldn't believe it, having been told in the dressing room he had played well. "You come back to work in Clare and the last thing you want to hear about is someone abusing you on the television. I wanted to look forward to the next game. It wouldn't affect me personally though and I said I'd go out against Kildare and show them."

That he did, but today brings one more obstacle. His sponsors Umbro have provided him with a pair of boots for today's encounter. He's been hitting the ball sweetly and for comfort they can't be matched. Thing is they're white, and McManus is worried they might give the impression of the collars up brigade. And that's just not him.

Proof nothing is ever simple in Offaly. Proof enough for the time being.