‘We looked tired, a wee bit lethargic’
“We wanted them to push up [late in the game[ but in the first half when we were turning ball over we wanted them to get at Kerry, there was no movement,” he said.
“Ryan McHugh, we couldn’t get him up the field, Rory Kavanagh, Frank McGlynn — excellent decision-makers, players with pace. Those were gaps in our game plan, gaps we needed to fill with corner stones.
“We needed more intensity, to be slick on the turnover, we needed to press the ball more aggressively in the last few minutes, but we were caught between two things as well. We needed a goal, probably, and we needed Michael [Murphy] inside... We tried to rejig that but our performance left us down.”
Disappointment in the performance was the thread running through McGuinness’s post-match comments. Why Donegal had been below par? It was a question he struggled to answer.
“I don’t know. It’s a big occasion, maybe that’s one reason, it’s too early for me to say. I have to look at it, look at what we did in the lead-in to the game... maybe we were thinking of nine o’clock and being in City West with the cup, but the game is played at 3.30. The disappointing thing is we didn’t get that performance. We looked tired, a wee bit lethargic, and we didn’t click into our normal rhythm.
“From a defensive point of view we were okay but not dominant. When we turned the ball over, we had a huge amount of work done on how intensive we wanted to be in terms of getting at Kerry.
“We didn’t have the runners, the overlaps, players getting ahead of the ball and asking questions of them. Kerry set up the exact way we expected them to set up, eight-nine players along their own 45 — they play a pressing game there and leave pockets in behind for their full-backs to go man to man.
“And you’ve got to keep the ball moving, keep recycling the ball and to find those pockets. We weren’t able to do that.
“Leo McLoone did well in terms of penetrating runs in the first half but we needed everyone doing that. The performance level wasn’t there to the level we expected. A lot of that is bread and butter to us, and that’s what’s disappointing.”
At the break the sides were level, but the Donegal boss was concerned.
“We weren’t happy with our performance at half-time, but I don’t think Kerry would be happy with their performance either, to be honest.
“I wasn’t happy with the position we were in at half-time because I don’t know how many turnovers we had, but it wasn’t a lot. When we did turn it over we didn’t really get at them, and those are things which are central to the way we play, so performance-wise, there are gaps there.
“I don’t think either team performed to their level. After Kerry’s second goal they started taking really good decisions on the ball, and they started to work us a lot. Over the 70 minutes we didn’t deserve to win the game.”
Even the positives — Donegal’s stirring reaction to conceding goals — came edged with regret.
“Why didn’t we do it all the time? I don’t know,” said McGuinness.
“It’s been a great year. They’ve given absolutely everything. I’m so disappointed for them because I feel they deserve more, though that’s obviously coming from a biased manager.
“Kerry have won the All-Ireland and they deserve to be champions, but they gave absolutely everything — we were just missing that spark to win an All-Ireland.
“We’ve won an All-Ireland — we know what it takes to win it, it takes a team that’s intensive, that’s positive and that’s continually driving through the 70 minutes. And there were too many periods in the game when it was so conservative.”
Looking into the future, there were short-term and long-term angles. McGuinness wasn’t looking forward to the debrief.
“There are a number of things we evaluate after every game, and I know we’ll score very low on this game, which is disappointing, because I know if we’d scored high we’d be really competitive,” he said.
He was keen on his players taking time to reflect on their futures, however.
“Today isn’t a day to decide you’re staying or not. I’ve never done that. We’ll reflect and then we’ll decide the best move after that.”
That missing performance still nagged at him, though.
“The one thing we wanted, to have no regrets and to empty it all on the pitch, because then no matter what the result you can live with it, but now we have to look at the fact that we got nowhere near our performance level but we still got within a whisker of sneaking a draw.
“And maybe if we got a draw, the performance and the intensity could have been there the next day, but that’s not something I’ll dwell on.
“The game was today, the game was 3.30 and we needed to be able to deliver a performance level worthy of winning the All-Ireland, and that wasn’t the case.”
