THE time is right for Jim McGuinness to pull on the Donegal bainisteoir bib once again and lead his county forward, says former Tir Chonaill sharpshooter Brendan Devenney.
McGuinness was appointed as the new Donegal Senior Football manager for a second stint on Monday night at a county board meeting, agreeing a three-year term with the option for a fourth.
The Glenties native led Donegal to the Sam Maguire in 2012, won three Ulster titles in four years and reached a second All-Ireland final in 2014 before emerging on a career in soccer.
He will have two of his players from the 2012 win over Mayo in his backroom set-up this time around, with Neil McGee and Colm McFadden, who is McGuinness's brother-in-law, coming on board.
Luke Barrett, the Donegal minor manager and brother Amber Barrett who featured for the Republic of Ireland in the Women's World Cup, will be part of the team working on analysis.
McGuinness had involvements with a number of soccer clubs, including Celtic, Beijing Guoan in China and Charlotte Independence in America, where he was the head coach.
He’s put all that to one side for the moment and has made a sensational return to the Donegal hotseat. “If you were that close on that (soccer) journey, that would be a very hard thing to close the door on,” said Devenney, a former teammate of McGuinness.
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“Last year when he offered to help out with Karl (Lacey) and Rory (Kavanagh), it still left it opened that he had time to do other things. He had been doing bits and pieces of soccer with Derry City underage, he was doing bits and pieces with Down as well.
“I think he was leaving his options open, but he must have decided that now was the time to come back into Donegal. He has a massive passion for Donegal and a love of training teams, and the time is right now.
“Obviously last year he still had his eyes on soccer, that’s why he offered a certain amount of time, but this year, he’s offering his full time. It’s not to say he couldn’t approach a soccer career again at some stage but maybe this is the right time for him. It’s certainly the right time for Donegal, we’re absolutely delighted to get him.”
McGuinness is the right man to take Donegal forward according to Devenney, not only for the here and now, but for the future. Devenney believes McGuinness can mould the next generation of Donegal managers, including a couple of his former players.
“If you look at it, in many ways we’re absolutely blessed,” added Devenney. “Last year, when it looked like nobody was really looking for the job, the county board put Paddy Carr and Aidan O’Rourke together and it was drawn out because nobody put up their hand.
“So, to have someone of Jim’s calibre, let’s be honest, what county wouldn’t want Jim? Really, every single county would. You might make an argument that Dublin and Kerry wouldn’t need someone like Jim but apart from that every other county in Ireland would.
“Donegal at the minute don’t have ready-made candidates and I think a big part of this is that if you have Leo McLoone and Eamon McGee with the U20s, Colm McFadden (with Sligo), Mark McHugh (with Roscommon), even if they don’t come in this year, if they had a couple of years under Jim, for Donegal’s future, we need those guys to be the next step.
“The last couple of years we’ve been looking around for the next step and Kavanagh and Lacey last year, that was it. The fact that Jim has come in now, if he stays for four years like he did previously and gets Donegal on the front foot, you’ll then have these guys experienced enough to take the job themselves.
“On top of Jim’s appointment now, for the future, with what the guys will learn, there could be the next stage to come in as well which is very important.”
