JIM McGuinness will be appointed as Donegal manager for a second time tonight.
The Tír Chonaill natives aren’t quite daring to believe it yet.
Of the nine winters since he stepped down after the 2014 All-Ireland final loss to Kerry, at least half of them have passed with his name just beneath the surface, pushing up on either an incumbent or an empty space.
Twelve months ago, he was in line as a figure in the shadows of Rory Kavanagh’s ticket until that all fell apart. Before that he’d been mooted for a part with Conor Laverty in Down but the same happened there.
The Glenties man, holder of a UEFA Pro Licence, had previously been resolute in his determination to force the door open in the League of Ireland. That’s why he was on those tickets rather than heading them.
It would have been hard for him to have retained the background anonymity he desired as he tried to lead a kind of Mrs Doubtfire-in-the-restaurant existence, jumping to one table while trying to disguise himself from the other.
When he spoke to the Irish Examiner podcast in March this year, the frustration that his name had been revealed in the meeting to unveil Paddy Carr was evident.
“It was almost like they were sending a signal: We have asked all these guys and they don’t want it. As if you were turning your back on your county. That was not the case.
“I was willing to help and trying to help. The door was closed in many respects on me and the word was filtered out at the county board meeting that all these people had been spoken to. I didn’t feel that was a true reflection of what happened behind the scenes.”
This time he’s front and centre. It will, as it was the last time, be done his way.
There have been two central pillars in his decision to return.
The first was the presence of Anthony Molloy and Martin McHugh on the five-man interview panel. Their involvement allayed a lot of fears.
Alongside that, a group of senior players basically hounded McGuinness into submission.
That bodes well in itself. For in Michael Murphy’s absence, one of the big question marks over this Donegal group has been their ability to replace his leadership.
When Patrick McBrearty, Hugh McFadden and Eoghan Bán Gallagher went to tell Paddy Carr that the players had lost confidence in him towards the end of the league, it wasn’t going to be a particularly well-received thing to do in some quarters, but it showed that they had players willing to take ownership of the thing.
Along with Ciaran Thompson, who at 27 is the same age as Gallagher and coming into his peak years, they’ve led the charge for McGuinness.
The Murphy question has already been batted away by arguably Donegal’s greatest ever footballer. He nipped it in the bud earlier this week, confirming to RTÉ that he has no intention of coming out of retirement, Jim or no Jim.
Jim being Jim, he’ll surely test the resolve of that notion each and every day until the first ball is tossed up in the McKenna Cup.
The make-up of his backroom team remains clouded in complete mystery, which in itself is a nod to the way the appointment committee have handled this process.
In the report produced by Croke Park after the Academy affair earlier this year, one of the most damning criticisms was of how they had handled managerial appointments. This one has been held together very differently.
Backroom names have been bandied but none have yet stuck. The obvious one was Karl Lacey but with everything that’s gone on around his departure from the Academy, that feels impossible at this stage.
What is likely is that McGuinness will bring the broom, clear the place out and start from scratch with his own people in every department.
There’s an obvious symmetry to when he first took over in the aftermath of Donegal’s most famous reference point, Crossmaglen in 2010.
This year has been their lowest ebb since then. You had the managerial upheaval, with Aidan O’Rourke steering the ship back to dry land and a respectable tail end of the summer after relegation from the league and losing to Down in Ulster.
That was all against the background of the Academy row which unquestionably seeped in, because how could it not have?
Most telling of all was the terraces. The Donegal public have fallen out of love in the last two years. Wallowing in their discontent, a lot of them had simply stopped going to games.
Yet this is a group of players that had its tentacles deep in a run of ten Ulster finals in 12 years.
It wasn’t all their run because the 2012 ship had sailed but the current bunch could claim definite ownership of the 2018 and ’19 titles and had taken Derry to extra-time in last year’s provincial decider.
They haven’t become a bad team overnight.
McGuinness’ appointment will heal the ground beneath their feet. In a county badly in need of stability, this is the perfect solution.
The players coming looking him will ease those leadership worries.
Murphy had a Roy Keane-like hold on the Donegal changing room, even if he didn’t mean to have. He was idolised by his own team-mates, whose motivation was often that they wouldn’t let him down.
They weren’t helped by the misfortune of Patrick McBrearty’s four-month absence through injury after he’d been named as their new captain. That was just about the last thing they needed.
One of the traits of McGuinness’ first spell in charge was the strength of the leadership group that he built among the playing group. Nothing major happened without running it past Murphy, Karl Lacey and Neil McGee first, but you also had the likes of Colm McFadden, Neil Gallagher, Paddy McGrath (whom they’d all have said was the best trainer in the squad). Endless leaders.
The elevation of Bán Gallagher and Thompson alongside McBrearty and the vocal on-field presence of McFadden will provide a new platform.
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WHEN McGuinness first took over in the winter of 2010, the word ‘expectation’ had been removed from every dictionary in Donegal. That was an advantage as he sought to build steel beams into a group that had obvious ability.
Three Ulsters, an All-Ireland and a second final soon fixed that.
“He completely changed the culture around Donegal football and what they expected of themselves, and what was expected of them nationally as a result,” said Eamonn Fitzmaurice in this paper in 2021.
But aside from Murphy’s leadership, they haven’t weaned themselves off him in the footballing sense yet either.
In the latter part of his career particularly, Donegal were virtually impassable at midfield. They’d put him in the middle of a wall of five men each standing six-foot plus – Hugh McFadden, Michael Langan, Caolan McGonagle and Ciaran Thompson – and they’d crush the opposition’s resistance.
It was only when Brian Kennedy and Conn Kilpatrick arrived on the scene that Tyrone turned their rivalry. Until then, they just couldn’t win the ball often enough.
Murphy is gone but four men of that stature is enough to dominate almost any team in Ireland.
Their decision not to go after Derry’s kickout in last year’s Ulster final was the point at which the whole thing began to crumble on them.
They didn’t have the structure or the belief this year to recover it, but that will be a platform McGuinness will zone in on.
Does the same depth of quality exist to make success happen?
The likely returns of Ryan McHugh, Niall and Shane O’Donnell, a fit-again Peadar Mogan, Michael Langan and McBrearty, an improved Oisin Gallen, new finds in Caolan McColgan and Mark Curran, a fledgling star in Luke McGlynn – they’re not a million miles off.
People would have questioned whether the talent was there 13 years ago too. Only Karl Lacey and Kevin Cassidy had Allstars to their name before 2011.
Seven more of their team-mates had been handed gongs by the end of the following year, by which stage they all had All-Ireland medals.
Maybe a lot of these players will come to be viewed very differently in 18 months’ time too.
Naturally there will be question marks over whether their manager can repeat the tactical trick he pulled on the world.
The surprise element he brought 12 years ago had its grounding in the scope that Donegal had for improvement at that time.
This time, everyone will expect big things.
The tectonic plates of Gaelic football were moved by McGuinness’ first team. They’ve settled into a new shape but will never go back to where they were.
Any question marks over his ability to adapt tactically are probably harsh. For one, he was a valuable member of Sky’s punditry team right up until their deal ended.
He continued his Irish Times column during the championship and since returning to Ireland has kept his hand in on the training field, helping Naomh Mairtin to a Louth championship in 2020 with six weeks’ work and then playing a big part in Naomh Conaill’s success in Donegal last autumn.
Mostly, though, you imagine he’ll adapt because he was ahead of the current curve a decade ago.
Dublin, Kerry and Derry were three of the last four this year. Is it any coincidence that they have the best transition play, that ability to turn defence into attack more effectively than anyone else?
Donegal built a defence in 2011 and built an attack in 2012. Look at their goals in the All-Ireland final that year, both off rapid counter attacks, one off a long diagonal kick-pass and the other through the hands.
The style of the first goal wouldn’t necessarily fly now but it’s almost inconceivable given what he’s achieved that McGuinness won’t be able to find new ways.
Whatever way it goes, at least this generation won’t die wondering what they’d have achieved had Jim McGuinness been their manager.
The Second Coming is about to begin.
