The demise of Donegal rooted in indiscipline

THAT Donegal are a football team fraying at the edges is undeniable. Every great team on the road for too long begins to fray. Tempers shorten. Impatience surfaces more frequently. Individual performances slip. And short cuts are taken. Donegal are trying to win games an easier way than ever before — and that includes distractions and diversions set up to annoy opposing teams. They have lost Neil McGee (right) twice this season for schoolyard-like indiscipline. And more than once this year we have seen Donegal footballers behave like noisy and uncontrolled schoolboys when opposing teams have been awarded a penalty kick. This tactic of delaying and impeding the penalty taker is either something that has been decided upon in advance or is rudely orcherstrated on the spot — either way, it’s fairly pathetic. Fermanagh boss Pete McGrath was quite right in calling out Donegal for their behaviour in the quarter-final tie two weeks ago. Donegal of course rejected his claims of gamesmanship, but, really, the only way that this proud team can show us all that they are still an honest and hard-working bunch is by going out in Breffni Park tomorrow against Monaghan and playing like men. Behaving like men. Winning or losing like men. And not like a bunch of delinquents. Only a supreme level of discipline is going to help them get the better of a Monaghan team that has been getting under their skin for a long time as it happens. Monaghan were the first team to do so. Now every other team seems to simply irritate Donegal.