Conor McManus admits Monaghan have much work to do after their smash-and-grab victory in Roscommon.

The Ulster champions took both points from their Division One opener in Kiltoom when All Star attacker McManus plundered an injury-time goal on Sunday but he concedes that the Farmey boys were far from their boisterous best:

"We have to brush up on the basic things in our performance before we play Down," the Clontibret hotshot told The Irish News. "We weren't great in the second half but we upped our performance. Roscommon came out and got the first score after half time which made it difficult for us. We couldn't panic or start rushing things.

"We started to push up on their kick-out in the secon -half. It looked like being a draw but the goal was just gifted to me, I think it was a slip. The important thing was to get enough scores on the board to win the game.

"We knew this was going to be a massive battle. At half time we were behind by six or seven points but we knew we hadn't performed. We knew there were scores in the game for us if he improved. The conditions were bad but we can't blame the conditions for everything that didn't go right for us.

"Roscommon played us off the pitch in the first half; in the second half we wanted to complete the basics better. I missed a couple of chances before the goal and when the chance came I needed to score to put daylight between us."

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