Donegal ready to grind it out
On a day when Donegal were accused of being wasteful to the point of carelessness (they shot 18 wides), he managed to direct the ball between the posts on three occasions from open play.
It wasn’t because of him that John Joe Doherty’s side fell in spectacular circumstances to Antrim, giving the Saffrons their first Ulster win in seven years.
Facing the same opposition at the same venue tomorrow, Kavanagh is adamant history won’t repeat itself.
His team now have a system, a structure that has proven mightily difficult to break down.
It’s been a departure. For years Donegal were lauded for not following with the crowd and keeping true to their attractive brand of attacking football. But that script was ripped up by new boss Jimmy McGuinness.
Goodbye gung-ho, hello grind.
The neutrals and the traditionalists in the county may bemoan Donegal’s metamorphosis but promotion to Division One just a few months into McGuinness’ reign is hard to argue against.
Kavanagh agreed: “People used always say ‘Donegal are lovely to watch, Donegal are very flamboyant, they have lovely footballers’ and all the rest. Then we would go out into big games and get hockeyed. There is no point being nice footballers and not getting results. It is a results business and hopefully we will get a good run this year.”
But why has it happened so quick? Granted, McGuinness brought Donegal U21s to the brink of an All-Ireland title last year and has drafted several of them into his senior panel. But why have the elders reacted just as positively?
“It is hard to put your finger on it,” acknowledged Kavanagh. “Different years you have different things facing you… I suppose it is the work-rate of everyone this year, where everyone is putting their shoulder to the wheel.
“In the past, it might have been a case where there were a few players carrying the can, everybody in the squad knows that they have a realistic chance of coming on and competing. You just have to look at Kevin Rafferty there, who came in out of nowhere and started in the league final. Jim knows he is not going to carry any deadwood around the panel and the boys that come in are thinking ‘I might be pulled here after 20 minutes’. He makes that point very clear to everybody and I think that leads to a very healthy squad and a very competitive squad. We have been benefiting from that through the league but we are going to have to go to another level now in the championship.”
Kavanagh, a panel member since 2002, also suggests there were psychological issues for the older panellists to contend with.
“Possibly some of us older fellas had baggage going into games. This might have happened, that might have happened going into championship games and we might have allowed that to linger over us but that now seems to have lifted.
“It is a new set-up, it is a fresh set-up; there is no mental baggage more so than anything else.”
Colm McFadden is certainly one of the more senior players who’s been rejuvenated under McGuinness.
He finished last season in forgettable circumstances, being criticised for apparently smiling on TV after being taken off against Armagh in the county’s qualifier defeat. But he was a massive contributor to Donegal’s six-game unbeaten run in Division 2, before bagging himself 1-3 in the final win over Laois.
“You would need to ask him that but he certainly is having a new lease of life. He had a talk with a lot of boys at the beginning of the year. He sat down with me at the start of the year and told me what he expected off me and what was needed, and I am sure that he did that with a lot of boys. When everyone is buying into it, you start to reap the rewards. The likes of Kerry, Tyrone and Armagh have been at it for years and we are only catching onto it now.”
DONEGAL: TBA
ANTRIM: S O’Neill; K O’Boyle, R Johnston, C Brady; T Scullion, J Crozier, A Healy; M McCann, A Gallagher; C Murray, T McCann, M Sweeney; P Cunningham, B Herron, K Niblock.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
