Éamonn Fitzmaurice: Jim McGuinness, Donegal, and the blueprint for how to beat Kerry

Donegal showed the best way to deal with Kerry's much-vaunted attack is to starve them of possession. You can be sure that anyone else with All-Ireland ambitions will also have sat up and taken notice

SOBERING: Kerry players Tadhg Morley, Dylan Geaney, David Clifford and Seán O'Shea take stock of their comprehensive defeat in the Allianz Football League Division 1 final to Donegal. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

That Croke Park performance and Division 1 final win for Donegal on Sunday was both a statement and an answer - a statement to the possibilities that 2026 holds and an answer to the way 2025 finished.

The hurt from that All-Ireland final loss poured out of them in a very positive way and drove them on with a steely determination. While it won’t disappear, it addresses it for now and fills their bucket of belief for the road ahead.

Part of being a manager and central to Jim McGuinness’ method is having the unquestioned loyalty of his players. 

The Donegal players clearly love him and buy what he is selling. However, while last July’s final mightn’t have diluted that trust, another defeat against Kerry in Croke Park, particularly in a tactical sense, could have impacted.

Because of all of that this final was a bigger game for Donegal. And that was clear from the off. Their body language and attitude was on point. They were lively, accurate and won all the battles. 

They showed the best way to deal with Kerry's much-vaunted attack is to starve them of possession. You can be sure that anyone else with All-Ireland ambitions will also have sat up and taken notice.

In many ways they corrected what went wrong for them last July, by targeting the first 20 minutes and going from there.

For a team with two-point shooters they didn’t get any in the All-Ireland final. Kerry got five. This time round Donegal got four two-pointers to Kerry’s one. Michael Langan set the tone in this regard. He got two in the first half, and added a third in the second. 

He has a lovely style where he can jink back and generate enough power from a standing position to kick over from 40 metres. 

Micheal Murphy chipped in with a two-point free after a 50m advancement. He was fortunate to be still on the field as he should have seen red, not yellow, for his closed fist belt on Dylan Casey. But having ridden his luck with that decision he shone for the rest of the contest.

Another element they fixed was their approach to the Kerry kickout. Donegal were clever here. 

Part of Kerry’s effectiveness on their own restart last July was their chipped kickouts to the corners and getting their pacy backs running into the space to receive them. 

Michael Murphy of Donegal walks away after an incident with Dylan Casey of Kerry, for which he was shown a yellow card. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

They ran the legs off the likes of Murphy in the process. Donegal were chasing shadows while Kerry were building attacks and getting shots off.

This year McGuinness flipped the script. Rather than allowing space around the arc for the Kingdom backs to bunch and break into he placed four of his lively nimble players in their full forward line to rule out easy shorts. 

Michael Murphy went out to the middle to contest many of the kickouts where he was effective in breaking them back in, often off Mark O’Shea freeing up some of the other big men to go at Joe O’Connor. 

Rather than chasing he was dictating. Donegal were brilliant on breaks. For a period in the first half Kerry went over 15 minutes without a score.

They only won seven out of their 15 restarts. The Ulster men scored six of their first half total of 0-13 via this method. 

The flow of the game was very much in Donegal’s favour, and it meant that Kerry simply couldn’t retain possession long enough or often enough to build attacks and to put Donegal defending. 

It bore an uncanny resemblance to the evening in Tralee when Galway thundered back into the game by squeezing the Kerry restart. As it was this time, that night it was the same kick to the same side with the same result. 

Matters did improve in the second half but it will be something that will be worked on in Portugal, I’m sure.

Kerry’s undoing in the second half was turnovers, leading to goals. Donegal got three in a three-minute period that killed the game stone dead.

The first developed into a stereotypical Donegal type goal but originally it started with a further adjustment to their approach from last July. 

Kerry had started the second half better but rather than allow them build attacks and pull them apart, the excellent Langan went after Dylan Geaney outside the 45 metre line and forced a turnover. Last year in this circumstance they sat in.

Throughout the game they had pushed out and engaged the man in possession while lagging in off other players outside the arc. 

From the turnover off Geaney, Donegal had three minutes of possession, where they probed, and which eventually finished with Conor O’Donnell bursting through the middle and scoring a great goal after Joe O’Connor charged out of the defensive shield and got sold.

All of the aspects that McGuinness has been trialing, tweaking and practising throughout the league came to fruition. They still have quality players to return such as Shaun Patton, Daire Ó Baoill, Ciarán Thompson, Ciarán Moore and Oisín Gallen. 

Finnbarr Roarty was sick so didn’t start. His replacement and under-20 colleague Max Campbell had a great game and adds further to the depth of their panel. They are in a great place now as they head towards their next big target, the Ulster Championship.

For Jack O’Connor and his players, this was a disappointing one. Regardless of what has been won, and what the rest of the year can potentially be, this was a poor performance in Croke Park, that could have been extremely damaging. At one stage they trailed by 20 points! 

They fought back to bring some degree of respectability to the scoreboard. There were mitigating factors in terms of the missing players, the long trip to and battle with Armagh and the fact they probably haven’t as much done as Donegal physically yet, which all played into what was a lethargic and sub-par performance.

In the long run this is no harm for them. It will eliminate any softness or corner cutting that can go on the year after the All-Ireland. It will ground everyone in the group and will make them realise that if you are even slightly off against the best teams you can be seriously punished. 

It will help inform their camp to the Algarve next week in terms of their priorities for the start of the Munster Championship.

What it also showed was that anyone thinking this All-Ireland was going to be a Kerry procession has just seen once again that’s not the way it works. One thing is for certain though. If and when these two sides meet down the line with everything on the line there won’t be an empty seat in the house.

IN the Division 2 final, Meath eventually got the job done in a great battle. The fact that they have played more of these big deal games in the last 12 months stood to them down the stretch. 

Cork were physical and aggressive from the off and tore into the Royals who struggled to find the fluency we had seen from them for much of the league. They simply weren’t allowed to. 

They looked flat and it was interesting to note when many of their backs were put going the other way they weren’t as good defensively as maybe previously thought, including myself. I was really impressed the way Cork set up their attacks in the first half. 

Rather than aping what nearly every other team is doing in terms of flooding the inside line with bodies to get one-on-ones on the arc they inverted it and loaded it up outside leaving loads of space to attack inside. 

They have pacy players and good runners from deep that can drive into those spaces. It also meant that the Meath backs had to chase back towards their own goals rather than being able to face the danger. This change in dynamic clearly upset their rearguard.

Additionally, goals can come off such a setup and Chris Óg Jones had two great opportunities in the first half before converting one in the second. Steven Sherlock was again excellent. 

He kicked 0-9 and was uncanny in his accuracy. He is some asset. 

Eventually Meath turned the screw. They got eight points in a row in a 15-minute period in the second half that saw them go from three down to five up. Central to that scoring burst was the excellent James Conlan. 

He got four which could have been five, when they made the brave/questionable (depending on your perspective) call to pass up a one pointer converted in an advantage to attempt a two-point free which Seán Brennan missed. 

Jack O’Connor’s cracker of a goal was also key in giving Meath the belief and energy to kick for home.

Right at the death, Cork can consider themselves unlucky that the ball wasn’t brought forward 50m when Maurice Shanley was fouled. 

To me it looked like Conlan delayed him taking a solo and go by tripping him. If that was the case it was a 50m advancement, after awarding the black card, and Sherlock would have had an opportunity to send the game to extra-time.

Having these counties back at the top table is fantastic for football and is just one other reason for us all to now look forward to the championship with relish.