Managers make all the difference

THE next time you hear anyone spout generalities like “the role of the manager is overrated” or that “all inter-county teams train as hard as each other these days”, you might gently rebuke them by reminding them of this past weekend and how Donegal — or rather Jim McGuinness’s Donegal — are Ulster champions.

Last year Donegal were the first team to exit the championship but that wasn’t the cause of their shame; it was the manner of that exit.

They were humiliated by Armagh, trailing by 13 points with 10 minutes to go, and it wasn’t an isolated case either; just two months earlier, in a league game that was effectively a promotion decider, they were tanked by 16 points by the same opposition in Letterkenny.