Neil Lennon: McGuinness has Donegal a step from Paradise

When we took Jim over to Celtic, there was a lot of pressure on him writes Neil Lennon

How it would affect his management of Donegal and what would come first? There was a lot of talk that he couldn’t do both. We decided Donegal would come first, and he would work predominantly with the younger players at the club.

If he wasn’t so committed to his county, of course, he would have had a bigger role with us. The problem was I didn’t want him to be in the line of fire and getting criticism that he wasn’t giving his all to Donegal and giving too much to Celtic.

We felt we got the balance right and from what I hear, he’s doing very well at the club and may now even be promoted to work with the first team on a more regular basis. He’s that intelligent a guy, that I can see him making the transition to bigger things. I’m not sure about the coaching sides of things just yet because he will require badges but from a sports psychology point of view, he can absolutely progress up the ladder.

When I was there he’d come in two or three times a week and put together profiles of the younger players. He’d watch training as well, sometimes the first team too. His work is coming to the surface now. Liam Henderson is now part of the first team squad. Darnell Fisher, Callum McGregor... his fingerprints are on a lot of what is coming through at the club. He’s a good communicator and that would have appealed to the players as much as it did to me.

Sport psychology is not something every club embraces but it was something we felt at the time was an area where we could make some inroads and Jim ticked all the boxes. He’s a very grounded individual. He has never let success got the better of him or got carried away with things. He’s a very humble man and was very respectful of all my backroom staff and players when I was there.

You could see he really enjoyed the experience.

We’d often chew the fat for hours about Gaelic football and we’ve spoken a couple of times since I left during the summer.

I’d always have my eye on Armagh and thankfully they now seem to be going in the right direction with Paul Grimley this year and Kieran McGeeney, who I played with as a county minor, now taking over.

I haven’t forgiven Jim for beating Armagh in the quarter-final!

He’s an impressive man but mostly because he prepares very well for whatever role he takes. I know from speaking to him at length that he had everything in order with Donegal this season, from January and February. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, when to train the players hard and when to train them harder. Keep them ticking over nicely for the league and then springing for the Ulster championship.

The Championship is not an easy place. We (with Celtic) have 38 games to win a title. In Gaelic football, you’ve to get it right on the day. Get it wrong once, and you’re in trouble. For Jim, it was really important to get them playing for the occasion.

He was disappointed with the way the season went last year. In terms of injuries, it was a real killer and he doesn’t have the biggest pool to pick from. But the way they have bounced back has been tremendous.

I must admit, it was a big surprise to me when they beat Dublin. I knew they were going to get out of Ulster okay but that was a major win.

Clearly, Jim’s excellent psychological approach worked wonders and it was a tactically superb game for him. He used the guys really well. Maybe the underdog tag helped.

I congratulated him on the win afterwards. Having to change so much of his backroom team at the end of last year would have been a big disruption. It would have meant starting anew in many ways but he has shown he can continue in the same vein as Donegal did in 2012.

I hope to get to the game tomorrow and see him go on and win another All-Ireland.

He and his players have it in them.

* A donation has been made by the Irish Examiner on Neil Lennon’s behalf to St Margaret’s Hospice, Clydebank for this column.