“It is undeniable that a little of the Jim McGuinness mystique perished beneath the rubble of July’s All-Ireland catastrophe.”
If it is patently an overstatement to argue that his aura was completely dismantled by 70 minutes of Clifford siblings alchemy, it is undeniable that a little of the Jim McGuinness mystique perished beneath the rubble of July’s All-Ireland catastrophe.
Watching Donegal’s tactical shaman fumble impotently as Paudie and David ran riot felt like an earthquake moment, a chess grandmaster struggling to master the basics of checkers.
Not unlike Ruben Amorim wedded to his ill-suited 3-4-3 as his Manchester United team flailed, so McGuinness clung stubbornly to an unfit-for-purpose, deep-lying, largely zonal marking system even as his Ulster champions flatlined.
Paudie Clifford – as much unoccupied space about him as a mountaineer might find on the lonely Carrauntoohil slopes – was granted the freedom of Croke Park, the Kingdom Tom Brady availing of an unprecedented 76 possessions to quarterback Kerry to untroubled glory.
McGuinness’s unexpected inertia essentially handed Paudie the nuclear codes with which to vaporise Tir Chonaill’s pursuit of a third Championship pennant.
In inexplicably declining to push up and man-mark the elder of the Fossa brothers (Brendan McCole had been designated to shadow David), in clinging to an unyielding philosophy, Donegal’s Special One shed a sizeable portion of his X-factor.
On that landmark day six months ago, McGuinness was something substantially less than master of all he surveyed.
In the fixture that provides the bricks and mortar for managers to construct reputational greatness, Jimmy’s afternoon amounted to a trail of broken pieces.
To deploy a tennis analogy, Jack O’Connor trounced his coaching counterpart in straight sets.
That McGuinness’s ego was badly stung by this self-inflicted wound became apparent ahead of Sunday’s Ballyshannon All-Ireland final rematch.
Legitimately quizzed in the aftermath of last weekend’s opening night victory over Dublin about whether he thought his team could win an All-Ireland while remaining faithful to his 2025 tactical template, McGuinness exhibited his tetchy side.
The July scars were all but visible as he railed against the value of outside opinions, insisting such views: “wouldn’t have any impact on my thinking whatsoever. I don’t listen to those people.
“Most of them have never coached at inter-county level. Most of them have never stood on a sideline. Most of them have never won anything as a coach.
“I only take counsel from people who’ve been there and done that. If it’s an All-Ireland winning manager or a top coach.
“I’ll listen to them and what they have to say. But I don’t listen to anybody outside of that, because it doesn’t make sense.
“Otherwise, they should be on the sideline competing against me.”
The immortal New York columnist Red Smith long ago lyrically demolished the kind of argument that says only those who have experienced the arena can offer a legitimate opinion when he observed: “If that were true then only dead men could write obituaries.”
Still, McGuinness’s sensitivity to an obvious query, was highly informative, a window to how deeply the wounds of 2025 have tunnelled into his psyche.
He has never been one to facilitate any questioning of his methods.
As the stellar but sacrificed Kevin Cassidy can testify, Jimmy’s terms as Donegal coach have been constructed on a Belichick/Ferguson ‘my way or the highway’ template of unbending omnipotence and absolute control.
The 53-year-old is beloved in his home place, where he has long been lionised as both a master of psychology and a strategic genius, a man who gifted the county days that will live forever.
Not only did he memorably lead Donegal to the 2012 mountain top, his tactical masterclass inflicted Jim Gavin’s lone Championship knockout defeat as Dublin manager two summers later. His first term famously took an entire county by the wrist.
Mesmerising, innovative and bright, McGuinness had the rapturous effect on his devoted flock of a charismatic evangelical preacher.
Jimmy was winning matches and the entire population of that vast, isolated, beautiful county seemed to stand ten-feet tall.
As Katherine Rundell writes in her biography of John Donne: “You cannot claim a man is an alchemist and fail to lay out the gold.”
Three Ulster titles in his first reign, followed by that second All-Ireland in 120 years, amount to a formidable exhibition of priceless nuggets.
His second coming applied new and impressive momentum to a county that had been adrift in the doldrums, his Midas touch delivering immediate back to back provincial crowns, a final four appearance in 2024, followed by last year’s surge to the final.
Jimmy’s aura was again bestowing happy certainty on his tribe.
In the 48 hours before last year’s All-Ireland final, your correspondent was invited onto two panels to discuss the match. Martin McHugh, stylish star of the class of 1992, was a fellow panellist at the Friday gathering. His son, Mark, a 2012 champion, joined the Sunday morning discussion.
Both are among the game’s most insightful and considered voices and what was striking was their absolute conviction that McGuinness would find a route to victory. Like so many in the county, their faith in their leader was unshakeable.
So to see the emperor undressed by Kerry, Jimmy besieged by unfamiliar circumstance and tactically undone, would have sent a collective shiver across Donegal. Because the aura is such a vital component in his arsenal – in making players and supporters believe that he will unearth the solution to any puzzle – even its partial decommissioning might prove enormously damaging.
The McGuinness factor has traditionally fuelled an unwavering persuasion that, regardless of circumstances, Jimmy will find a way.
And then last July, as Paudie Clifford seized the title deeds to the biggest contest of the year, Donegal’s manager deployed – and persisted with – defensive tactics that a body of evidence insists have been rendered time-expired by new rules rewarding adventure.
McGuinness is too smart and perceptive not to recognise this reality.
Despite his prickly post-match comments, there was compelling evidence in their approach against Dublin that Donegal have embraced the evolutionary process.
The memory of how the Cliffords were like anode and cathode, an electric current of brilliant understanding flowing between them, has clearly struck a chord. But it is the chippy McGuinness declaration in the aftermath of the Dublin game that endured.
O’Connor mischievously mentioned it – “I saw where Jimmy was fine and cranky with the media” – in his own debriefing the next afternoon after a much-discussed late point secured Kerry an opening victory over Roscommon.
Jack understood that the tactical interrogation had struck a McGuinness nerve, the Kerry man clearly not unhappy to see his rival rattled.
Donegal have lost their 2025 captain Paddy McBrearty to retirement, while their talisman Michael Murphy turns 37 the week after the All-Ireland final. But they remain formidable, bursting with talent and second favourites for Sam, their odds halved from 7/1 to 7/2 in recent weeks.
Unusually, the question marks are attached not so much to their playing resources than to the decorated figure on the sideline.
From some storms there are no shelter. If McGuinness was reluctant to address that truth in a Croke Park interview room last weekend, Donegal’s season hinges on him shaping an eloquent response on the playing field in the months ahead.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login