Wary of new-found believers

There’s a natural inclination of folk from Donegal to be as sceptical of credit as they are of criticism.

In the forgotten county, those clever marketing folk at Tourism Ireland got it exactly right – up there it certainly is different.

The ‘Donegal duvet’ of last year keeps their feet warm at the back but the footballers under Jim McGuinness have now broadened their capabilities as an attacking force.

Donegal have averaged 19 points a game in their opening two Ulster championship encounters and their 2-13 to 0-9 win over Derry was heralded nationally for the first time.

However, former manager Tom Conaghan, the man who brought the first All-Ireland to the county — the 1982 U21 title — and sealed the county’s place in Division 1 of the National Football League for the first time in 1988, has urged caution.

“My only advice to Jim McGuinness is to be wary of what them boys in the national media are saying,” Conaghan said. “They are only jumping on the bandwagon now because they think Donegal are going to win something.”

Manus Boyle, who scored nine points in the All-Ireland final win over Dublin in 1992, has also noticed the change of opinion. “The same pundits that deplored the way we played last year are now our biggest fans,” he added.

The reason for McGuinness’s initial caution on appointment is understandable. In 2009, Donegal faced Cork in an All-Ireland quarter-final and left with the unwanted record of the highest concession ever in a football match played at Croke Park, 1-27.

A year later, Donegal were hammered in Crossmaglen by Armagh in a first round qualifier, 2-14 to 0-11.

Donegal players could only trudge off with their heads bowed and claimed to have heard derisory snorts of laughter from Armagh’s panel during their warm-down.

McGuinness inherited a team with neither form nor confidence. On appointment he promised to restore the pride and told supporters no team of his “would ever leave the field without leaving every last ounce on it”.

Establishing a solid defensive pattern coupled with a strict and gruesome training regime was the plan for year one. Donegal won a first Ulster championship since the decorated All-Ireland winning team of 1992.

For a team coming from such a low stance, Ulster might have been seen as an achievement. But after a light session on the Tuesday night to run off the few pints from Sunday, the Thursday get-together was unmerciful, with little puddles of vomit dotting the pitch in the village of Convoy.

Donegal toppled Kildare – a side of similar capabilities as them but one perceived to be further down the track — in arguably the match of the championship.

McGuinness was wary of Dublin’s threat ahead of the All-Ireland semi-final. After all, memories were still fresh among his players of Cork’s 27 points two seasons beforehand, while Dublin had smashed 22 points past Tyrone in the quarter-final only three weeks previously.

Croke Park had never witnessed Donegal’s 14-man defensive policy and the stroke almost paid off on a claustrophobic afternoon. They came within a kick of the ball of toppling the eventful All-Ireland champions, narrowly losing 0-8 to 0-6 in perhaps the most unconventional game of football ever played.

McGuinness sat in the media room that particular evening as the knives were being sharpened, making no apologies for the negative ploy. For a team who were the first to be eliminated from the championship in 2010, before the month of June was even out, McGuinness’s Donegal were the last side evicted before All-Ireland final a year later. No team made such strides over 12 months.

“In relation to the criticism, people have their own opinions about how we played the game that day,” McGuinness said last month of Dublin.

“We had a game plan as to how we thought we could win the match and we put our best foot forward. We knew we were going to get criticised for what we were doing.

“We might’ve been lauded if we had won the game by a certain section. You see that in soccer but in Gaelic games it ruffles a few feathers.

“The reality is, every game in the world is moving and evolving. To be at the centre of that storm, well, it was something we just had to deal with.”

As Donegal perpetually withered in the summer heat over the past decade, they watched as neighbours Tyrone won three All-Irelands but the cyclical nature of football means McGuinness’s team are favourites this evening in Clones.

Such a tag in a championship derby is worthless, as since the time Mickey Harte’s team took Sam Maguire north for the first time in 2003, their record against Donegal remains symmetrical — played 17, won and lost eight with one draw.

The one occasion last year when Donegal looked to be drowning was when they trailed Tyrone 0-5 to 0-1 in the Ulster semi-final on the last weekend of June in Clones. Sound familiar? The way things used to roll in Donegal, the more you read into their psyche the more difficult they were to understand. Now, the approach is clearer, although still intensely complex to deal with.

When Michael Murphy’s penalty helped defeat a carefree Derry in the Ulster final last year, Donegal beat a team that was effectively the same as themselves of old. Derry had turned up in hope, having played open and expansive football, but were suffocated by a force more scientific than spontaneous.

Donegal repeated the trick — although this time much more convincingly with numbers as committed to attack as well as defence — against John Brennan’s team earlier this month and it was they and not Derry who had evolved from last July.

“It’s taking a natural progression,” defender Frank McGlynn said.

“Last year there probably was a focus on getting our defence in order. If you look at the previous couple of years we were shifting heavy scores so last year we worked hard.

“In terms of fitness, we’ve just built on the work we did last year. This year, we’ve realised if we want to be as successful as we hope to be then we’ll have to put up the scores a bit more often. Lucky enough they have been good so far.”

Luck is just one of the variables McGuinness cannot control, but his Donegal team have worked hard to ensure whatever constants there are can work in their favour.

Today will provide another huge test.