McGee already eyeing more glory

Be warned — Neil McGee reveals Donegal have already talked about defending their All-Ireland title next year.

The Gweedore full-back said the 2013 campaign had been discussed among the group at their post-final banquet on Sunday night.

“We actually spoke about that but you’ve Jim McGuinness in charge. Don’t worry, we’ll be back on tracks fairly shortly!

“I suppose you have to just embrace it, good teams win one All-Ireland but great teams win two or three.

“That’s the next challenge for us now, to push on and maybe win another one or two.”

There were some mixed emotions for McGee after his friend and club-mate Kevin Cassidy missed out on winning a medal alongside him and his two brothers, Eamon and Peter McGee.

“It’s something you have to just move on with. It’s out of our hands. It’s just a pity for all parties but what can you say?”

The Sam Maguire Cup arrives in Gweedore tomorrow afternoon at 4pm and it’ll be a momentous occasion for the McGees.

“The one thing we’re really looking forward to,” said Neil. “It wasn’t there in ’92, we had no members on the panel and three brothers now taking it into the parish, it’ll be special, it’ll be a nice thing.”

Even though Gweedore have championship football the weekend after next against Michael Murphy’s Glenswilly, McGee is looking forward to the hiatus in inter-county preparations.

“Well, in fairness, you do need a break after the effort. I saw out on the field (on Sunday) a lot of boys down on their knees and I’d just say the tanks were dry after all the work that’s been done all year. The last 10 minutes, especially, there were a lot of boys on their knees, myself included.

“We probably need a break. Once you put in that kind of work, you need four or five weeks’ break anyway.”

McGee admitted he was taken aback when James Horan took off his marker Michael Conroy with more than 10 minutes to play.

“I was surprised, to be honest. We were having a good battle. He was a right handful. I enjoyed the battle but they probably wanted to change tactics a bit and put the long ball in.”

McGee complimented McGuinness on getting the defensive pairings right on the Mayo forwards.

“Well, we studied the Mayo and Dublin game and we saw that Mayo put a lot of ball into Conroy in the corner and we thought maybe (Cillian) O’Connor pulled out. He obviously picked up a lot of ball against Dublin and I think Jim got his match-ups right.”

Meanwhile, Derry star Paddy Bradley has ruptured his cruciate ligament in his left knee — a year after suffering the same injury to his right knee. The former All Star suffered the injury training with his club Glenullin last week and his worst fears were confirmed when he had a scan on it yesterday.