Eamon Fitzmaurice: Too much can be made of managers in gaelic football

Eamonn Fitzmaurice believes too much can be made of the role of managers in gaelic football.

The Kerry boss says Donegal counterpart Jim McGuinness deserves tremendous credit for bringing the county from “ground zero” to All-Ireland champions in 2012.

“I haven’t come across it before (a team defined by its manager and system), but to be fair to Jimmy when he took over Donegal they were at ground zero.

“He implemented a very defensive system the first year, got them to an All-Ireland semi-final, came up short by being so defensive, but then changed their game-plan again the next year to give them the attacking threat.”

“Obviously he deserves a huge amount of credit, but at the end of the day I’m not going to be kicking any ball and he’s not going to be kicking any ball. It comes down to the players and the players following the game-plan and making the correct decisions on the field. I think too much can be made of managers.”

Tactically, says Fitzmaurice, Donegal pose a challenge neither the management nor players have faced this season.

“The danger is that you can become too obsessed with Donegal. We’ll worry about ourselves, we’ll get ourselves right.

“We’ll have to definitely toughen with our own game-plan.