WE HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE..
Jim relished trip down memory lane as he leads his troops to yet more silverware at Headquarters
BY
ON the way into Croke Park, Jim Mcguinness bumped into the steward who’d been assigned to the Donegal team for their All-ireland final appearances.
It felt just like the old days for the Donegal manager who collected another trophy as boss, his first since the Ulster SFC win of 2014.
Now in his second stint as manager, Mcguinness can take plenty of kudos from this Division 2 success too.
Aaron Doherty capped a late Donegal comeback with the stoppage-time winner so will go down as the gamebreaker but the manager’s fingerprints were all over this one.
Donegal were injury-ravaged and missing players like captain Paddy Mcbrearty, Brendan Mccole, Ryan Mchugh and Eoghan Ban Gallagher but Mcguinness still sent out a side full of character that came good when it mattered most.
On his 100th appearance for Donegal, Glenties man Ciaran Thompson took over the armband from Mcbrearty and excelled with four points, the same as Oisin Gallen.
Mcguinness said it’s ‘week by week’ now to see which of his injured stars will be back for the blockbuster Ulster SFC opener with Derry on April 20.
What’s certain is that Donegal will take momentum and a can-do attitude into the Championship with a character-laden finish stealing the silverware for them.
Tied 10 times, and a point behind entering stoppage time after conceding five in a row to Armagh, Donegal dug deep with three of the game’s last four points.
Fans will view it as one against the head and perhaps the start of another long summer like the ones they enjoyed in 2012 and 2014 in Mcguinness’s first spell as boss.
Asked if it felt like the old days, Mcguinness said: “It feels great, it’s lovely.
“It was a final, a beautiful day for football and a young team coming into Croke Park to learn your trade with a couple of old heads as well.
“It’s lovely to be back and obviously to be going down the road with a trophy, that’s the most important thing.
“A lot of people that you probably weren’t thinking about coming down the road suddenly came into your thoughts; the people in the stadium, the stewards, the man that looked after us on All-ireland final day in the dressing-room.
“It was all those people that were a part of your life that you never thought about after.
“Meeting all those people again was nice, it was lovely.”
Mcguinness added: “We’d a lot of young lads on the bus today heading to Croke Park for the first time.
“With the injury list we have, we didn’t want to be taking any risks, we were trying to manage that. We’re delighted to get the result first and foremost.
“I felt we kind of controlled a lot of the game. We got to 0-12 to 0-8, it probably shouldn’t have been as tight as it was then in the end.
“That being said, you always find out a wee bit more about your team in those situations.
“From being four points up to one point down, we managed to get to a point up again and that’s a big plus for us in terms of the young lads finding their feet and a bit of character and stuff like that.”
It was a tough watch for long spells, tight and tactical with too many wides.
Donegal outscored Armagh by 0-6 to 0-1 either side of half-time to take a four-point lead with 20 minutes to go.
But Armagh, who had hit the post a couple of times, suddenly fired over five points in a row.
Now the Orchard men had the momentum with a 0-13 to 0-12 lead but Mcguinness saw Caolan Mcgonagle, Gallen (inset) and Doherty reel off the stoppage-time points needed to win it for Donegal.
Armagh boss Kieran Mcgeeney said: “We were a bit flat, we just had one of those weeks.
“No pitches to train on, bug in the camp.
“Sometimes if you miss a session or two it can give you a bit of a bounce but we just seemed to be very flat for most of the game.”