McGuinness a stout defender of The System
The statement above provided the introduction to a column which appeared in this newspaper three months ago. At the time, I couldn’t reveal the identity of the manager quoted.
It was Jim McGuinness.
Jim made the remark to me in one of the long telephone conversations we would have sporadically. As a journalist, I had a fairly frustrating relationship with Jim. It was frustrating only in the sense that 99% of the really interesting things he said to me were all delivered off the record.
Like all gifted coaches, Jim McGuinness is essentially a teacher. And like any person who has the vocation to teach, Jim likes to impart what he knows.
And when Jim McGuinness provides you with an insight it borders on the mind-blowing.
Although there was usually a simple and clever logic to most of Jim’s ideas, I wasn’t entirely convinced by everything he said. The quotation at the top of this page is the best example. Jim made that comment during this year’s league. I had just finished work and was walking to my car. Jim returned a call that was made about six hours earlier. Another off-the-record marathon ensued.
I brought up Dublin and suggested they might just be unbeatable. Very deliberately and without absolute conviction, he said: “Paddy, there is one thing you must understand about football — the best system wins.”
I wasn’t sure if I subscribed to that theory but I could tell there wasn’t a shred of doubt in Jim’s mind. It wasn’t an opinion. It was like a central tenet of his belief system (the implication, unspoken but understood, was that Donegal had a better system than Dublin).
And that’s the other dimension to Jim’s personality which makes him such a powerful force. Not only is he a teacher, he’s a preacher as well. There’s an evangelical quality about him.
When Jesus finished the Sermon on the Mount, the Bible says that as the crowd dispersed they were “amazed” because “he had taught as one who had authority”.
All great preachers possess that gift. While Jim might contend that the best system wins, it’s means nothing unless his players share the same belief.
In this year’s All-Ireland semi-final when Dublin led by five points and Paul Flynn was conducting his very own ‘Best Long-Range Point of the Decade’ competition, Donegal proved their faith in the system was devout.
That period was arguably Jim McGuinness’s greatest moment. Under the same circumstances, every other team would have buckled.
It would be a mistake to believe McGuinness’s coaching expertise is an entirely natural phenomenon. Authority requires knowledge, and knowledge requires hard work. He has put in the hours.
Not long after he was appointed, I took a call from him on my day off. Around that time Tyrone had just lost an All-Ireland quarter-final to Dublin. The defeat sparked a huge debate. For the entire game, Tyrone had employed short kick-outs and a running game. Opinion was divided on Tyrone’s tactics.
But Jim was unequivocal. It turned out he had spent the previous night poring over the game’s DVD. He was able to provide a detailed analysis on the outcome of every Tyrone kick-out.
The kick-outs were not the problem. On nearly every occasion Tyrone went short, they worked the ball to the other end of the ground. Between the two 45s, Jim believed Tyrone were the best in the business. However, while Tyrone got the ball to ‘within’ the scoring zone, they didn’t create enough chances ‘in’ it.
While Jim had huge respect for Mickey Harte, the team he really admired was Kerry. When the counties met in the 2012 league, he was blown away. By that stage, most other counties were predictably dumb when they encountered Donegal’s defensive screen. Not Kerry.
In 2012, McGuinness outlined why Kerry were so special. The Kerry players had superior game intelligence. When confronted with Donegal’s screen, they didn’t charge into it like lemmings. Nor did they pass around in ineffective circles.
When Donegal beat Kerry in the 2012 championship he was more animated than when they beat Mayo in the final. The only other time Jim celebrated with the same level of gusto was after this year’s Ulster final. On that occasion, the source of his satisfaction was largely personal.
An air of gloom had descended on Donegal last year. After losing to Mayo by 16 points, the departure of Rory Gallagher and Maxi Curran looked like further signs of a dizzying downward spiral.
As is often the case when any GAA team is successful, Rory Gallagher, the No 2, was accredited with being ‘the real brains’ of the operation. But Donegal’s victory in this year’s Ulster final was a vindication for Jim as it showed he wasn’t dependent on anyone. The win over Dublin proved it beyond doubt. Yet, while the victory against the Dubs suggested that anything in football is possible, the defeat to Kerry confirmed the wisdom of another one of Jim’s footballing commandments. When Jim informed me that the best system wins, I asked him what happens when two teams with the same game plan collide.
The response was instant. “In that case, the team with the best players wins,” he said. Unfortunately for Jim and Donegal, he was again proved correct. Better players make fewer mistakes.
In this year’s All-Ireland final, we witnessed two teams playing the same system. Kerry, with the better players, made fewer mistakes and won. That defeat and the surrounding landscape will have had a huge bearing on Jim’s decision to call it a day.
As he looked towards 2015, could he have realistically envisaged another All-Ireland triumph? The tactically astute Eamonn Fitzmaurice will have Tommy Walsh and Colm Cooper back in his ranks. Dublin manager Jim Gavin already has the best players. He just has to tweak his tactics.
Bear in mind that when Armagh copied Donegal they almost beat them. If Donegal are to continue being successful, the system is no longer enough. Do Donegal have the best players? As ever, Jim is well ahead of the game.
And when the Donegal County Board start looking for a successor, they will quickly discover that some of the sharpest football minds in the county have already reached the same conclusion as Jim.
