IT IS A RISKY BUSINESS

Jim reckons the game’s moved on

JIM MCGUINNESS says Gaelic football has moved on and people are taking more “high-risk decisions.”

This weekend Mcguinness’s Donegal will meet a Derry side that have relentlessly pressed the opposition kickout all season as an attacking platform.

It culminated in a spectacular victory over Dublin in the Division 1 League final at Croke Park after extra-time and penalties.

But will Derry press as high and often against Shaun Patton, who has one of the longest and most accurate kick-outs in the game?

And how will Donegal look to counter this if they do.

In Mcguinness first spell in charge of Donegal (2011-14) the game was more defensively orientated with counter attacking football the favoured tactic of the vast majority of teams in Ulster.

But better conditioning levels have allowed teams to press further up and attack more often and in greater numbers.

“In the context of longer balls, higher pressing, the game has moved on a lot,” said Mcguinness.

“It is much more complex. People are making high-risk decisions at moments in the game now.

“Not necessarily all the time in the game. There are very few teams who are going all out in every phase of play.

“It is risk, reward.”

Mcguinness says it is an evolution rather than a revolution with teams picking and choosing their moments to go after the opposition.

“The game is moving very fast.

“The kick-outs are a problem in the sense that they are very dangerous now.

And shutting them down is very dangerous.

“People become very conservative in that regard.

“One or two can kill you and if you (the opposition) defend well after that, you are not going to win the game.

“So people are coming off them now and setting up on the 45 and trying to get their heat on there and slow you as opposed to take you on because of the dangers.

“All of these things I think feed into it and it will be very interesting to see what comes out of the review process to see what can be done.”

Mcguinness says that any changes to the game have to belong to everyone and not just the Football Review

Committee, chaired by

Jim Gavin.

“I think every stakeholder in the GAA has a part to play.

“Managers should be involved in it. Coaches and players should be involved in that and then the people that are running it.

“They seem a very good group of people but I don’t think it can be theirs.

“I think there needs to be a really good sense of consensus in terms of what it would look like moving forward.”