Jim McGuinness: 'Sometimes in life you've got to put your hands up and take it on the chin'
Fintan O'Toole Reports from Croke Park
IF 2014 BROUGHT regret for Donegal at the hands of Kerry, narrowly held off on the biggest day of the football year, then 2025 brought more a sense of painful acceptance.
There was no disputing the outcome of today’s final. Donegal fell below-par, Kerry caught fire all day and the ten points between the teams at the final whistle reflected that.
“It’s a bit early for all of that, and a wee bit raw,” was the summation of Donegal boss Jim McGuinness.
“We didn’t perform, Kerry did perform, that’s the bottom line. I thought we responded quite well in the first half on our attack, we were good, we were clinical, but I think they might have scored in their first six attacks, so we were struggling to deal with them.
“We made too many mistakes. We made decisions that we don’t normally do and we had just too many turnovers. So we were chasing our tails. The couple of moments before half time, a five-point game, then we lose possession, and then it ends up a seven-point game.
“That was a tough one to take. Had we been able to work that and got a score, we would have probably ended up going four down at half-time. I think it might have been a very different dressing room at that stage, very different dynamic in terms of going out for the second half, but that was fairly significant.
“We got close to it on one occasion, four points in it, and we had three wides in a row. Even one or two of them to go over, we would have been happy enough going down the stretch.
“The momentum was there. Our supporters have been absolutely amazing all year and I got the sense today that they were there waiting for us to catch fire and that didn’t happen. Those moments, maybe those couple of wides had an impact on it.”
Kerry’s irrepressible Clifford brothers caused serious damage to the Donegal rearguard, David amassing nine points and Paudie chipping in with three.
“We did a lot of work in terms of managing him (David). I thought Brendan did actually quite well on him for periods, but obviously it does take more than one person to try and close down David and he kicked some brilliant twos.
“You’ve got your plans and you’ve got your processes and you’ve got all the things that you’re working on all year. Where we got rattled was in possession ourselves. We give the ball away at times today where it’s very uncharacteristic. And against Kerry, you can’t do that.
“They keep the ball very well. Paudie Clifford is almost press-resistant, it’s very, very difficult to get heat on him. He’s physically strong, controls the game, protects the ball very well and obviously plays very well with his brother.
“Was it six or seven scorers we had? I think we’ve have 12 in the last two games, so definitely, yeWhy did we not get the same traction in terms of threats all over the pitch and different people popping up at different times? That’s all things that probably come into the mix.
“Kerry had a very aggressive press on. We were trying to do the same. They won a lot of breaking ball. We would pride ourselves on that aspect of it. They won a huge amount of breaking ball. Gavin White, in particular, won a huge amount of breaking ball. Every possession was crucial.
“Sometimes in life you’ve got to put your hands up and you’ve got to take it on the chin. Today is one of those days, unfortunately for us.”
McGuinness hailed the effort of his group who have collected the last two Ulster titles, but was adamant they didn’t deserve a better outcome.
“They’ve put a massive shift in. They’ve given it their absolute all from the beginning of the year. They’re a very good group to work with. Very dedicated, very focused on what they want to do. Today’s not a good day for us.
“Very, very disappointed for the people of Donegal that it didn’t work out. They were here in their droves today and didn’t get the performance either, which is disappointing.
“I said to the players in the dressing room, it’s not a game you should think about for a long time. We didn’t deserve to win the game. That’s the reality of it.
“Sometimes you just have to let performances slide. And this is one of them.”
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