'You stay in the parade right until the end'

Oisín McConville believes Donegal’s decision to break early from the pre-match parade negatively impacted on their chances of beating Kerry.

The back-to-back All-Ireland champions also looked uncomfortable as Michael D Higgins conducted his presidential duties for the last time before an All-Ireland SFC final. Speaking on the Second Captains podcast, McConville explained how completing the parade was always insisted upon by his Crossmaglen and Armagh manager Joe Kernan before All-Ireland finals.

“It just shows how much planning goes into it. [Donegal] thought ‘it’s different, there’s a lot of waiting around and this is not the way we normally approach it’,” the Wicklow boss said.

“It was very noticeable. The president’s thing in the last two weeks, because of the way he’s moving himself, has taken longer and the game hasn’t started on time. They’ve probably taken all of that into account…

“Joe Kernan used to focus in on the parade in a big way. In fact, every time we played, even if the Armagh flag was on the inside, he would actually put it on the outside. He would actually get it changed to the outside.

“The reason for that was that there was no stopping on the thing, you could walk around and not get caught up in it.

“Any time I’ve played under Joe Kernan we’ve done that, including club finals that’s eight times. That’s definitely something he was very conscious of, and that you stay in the parade right until the end.

“That was just a decision he made and that something we done. I think it sort of worked for us as well.”