AFTER THE GOLDRUSH
Dissention is festering in Donegal’s closed ranks
In a week that would reveal further fracture lines in the team that he built, Jim McGuinness set the ball rolling himself. At Croke Park last Sunday, he did the rarest of things, publicly chastising midfielder Rory Kavanagh for picking up a red card for the inventive manner in which he had used his boot on Monaghan’s Darren Hughes.
‘He’s lost his discipline, it’s not good enough. It had a big impact on the game,’ said McGuinness, after seeing his team comprehensively beaten in the Allianz Division 2 final. This is the manager who got hold of a team that was in a heap four years ago, moulded them into All-Ireland champions inside two and one of whose absolute principles was that loyalty to each other was non-negotiable.
He created such a bond that when one of the county’s most celebrated players was deemed to have breached a trust, they, as one, cast Kevin Cassidy aside in the winter of 2011, just months after the Gweedore man had picked up his second All Star award, but before he could lay his hands on one of the GAA’s most precious commoditites – a gold winner’s medal.
Given that the protection of the integrity of his group is so fierce, it was strange that he felt the need to redden Kavanagh’s ears in public but then, perhaps, for once, his head has been scrambled. He may already have sensed by then that Mark McHugh (below) was heading for the door (sources indicate that their relationship had become strained in recent weeks). Either way, he may have been articulating the frustration that he no longer knew where the team he created had gone.
The truth is that he has not seen them in a while. Since their 2012 All-Ireland final win over Mayo, you can count their topnotch performances on one hand; even then you won’t need to engage all the fingers. They bullied Kerry in last year’s League and their shut-down of Tyrone in last year’s Championship was impressive, as was the intensity of their performance against Monaghan, particularly in the first half of their League clash in Letterkenny in March.
But, for the most part in between, they have looked one-paced, tired of mind and body. Last Sunday’s defeat to Monaghan was alarming simply because it was pretty much a re-run of last summer’s Ulster final, Monaghan playing to the rhythm that they themselves once rocked to.
Of course, there was context. Donegal had the feel of a team which had been worked hard; a gruelling week-long camp in Portugal was apparently followed up by a brutish session in the build-up to the match last week.
But, if there is comfort in that, it is cold. The theory is that if they ease up now, with the heavy lifting out of the way, they might regain their mojo in time for the Derry game which, with Antrim or Fermanagh to come, effectively qualifies as an Ulster semi-final.
THAT, though, requires a leap of faith. The basis for McHugh’s departure this week was given he was ‘no longer enjoying his football’ but he is not alone. It is understood that several of McGuinness’ panel have grown weary of intense grinding sessions which, one source claimed this week, have a ‘robotic’ feel. There is also the fact that the dynamic has changed between the management and players. Perhaps, one of the reasons McGuinness pushed them so hard last year was to show that even though his circumstances had altered following his decision to assume a role with Celtic FC, nothing else had changed.
But the biggest change came last autumn with the shedding of his assistant Rory Gallagher, although it says much about the code of the group that almost eight months on the public is still in the dark as to what constituted the breaking point in that relationship. One of the theories suggests Gallagher wanted to moderate the training – particularly with the older players in mind – but was ignored. Whether that is true or not, the sense is that McGuinness has lost a forceful voice that he would once have heeded, and he also lost a coach who was well respected by the players, not least McHugh with whom he enjoyed a close relationship through his involvement with Kilcar.
THERE ARE, of course, more obvious reasons for Donegal’s apparent decline such as time grinding them down. The great irony is that for all the emphasis on the group, McGuinness has a team and not a panel. In the last three years his starting team has only changed when circumstances have dictated.
Eight of the players has featured in all 18 Championship games under him, and that number would have climbed to 12 had injury not deprived Frank McGlynn, Kavanagh, McHugh and Karl Lacey of the odd game. And once McGuinness recalled Eamon McGee and settled on Neil Gallagher in 2012 as his preferred
The great irony is that for all the emphasis on the group, McGuinness possesses a team and not a panel
midfielder, the team picked itself. A deficit of internal competition while burdening them with an attritional workload is not the ideal environment to ensure that players sustain their level of performance year on year.
The failure to blood new players has proved costly, but that is a reflection of the shallow pool that he fished from in the first place and, in a way, serves to accentuate what he has achieved.
That said, the disaffection that led Gary McFadden and Thomas McKinley to cash in their chips this week is believed to have been rooted in the disappointment of being serially overlooked on the bench, and they were unhappy at being passed over one time too many last Sunday.
There may yet be a kick in Donegal during the Ulster championship but, if there is, it is unlikely to generate the momentum to carry them beyond that.
This is almost certainly McGuinness’ final spin, and the prospect is that when he goes, given mileage issues and ambitions sated by that All-Ireland win, that others like Lacey, McGlynn, Gallagher, Kavanagh and Colm McFadden may follow immediately.
The real threat is that McGuinness could leave them in a place not that dissimilar to where he found them. It has been a road gloriously travelled, but that would make for a cruel ending.