Luckless Durcan’s kick-out gaffe leaves Jimmy mystified

So what exactly was Paul Durcan pictured thinking?

It was a question that prompted a thousand barstool debates on Sunday night yet, many hours later, there were still no definitive conclusions.

The Donegal goalkeeper looked bright eyed and fresh at their CityWest Hotel base yesterday afternoon but politely refused requests for an interview which, inevitably, would have centred on the calamitous error. The vastly experienced keeper miscued an attempted short kick-out in the 52nd minute, sending the ball out to Kerry’s Kieran Donaghy instead of an intended Donegal defender. Moments later, Donegal’s net rippled.

Manager Jim McGuinness couldn’t explain the situation either, though gave some credence to the suggestion that Durcan may have mistook Donaghy for a Donegal player, given the similar jersey colours.

“Well they [the colours] were very close,” said McGuinness. “We were going to propose in the run-up to the game, maybe to go in white ourselves. Just for ourselves to go in white. But listen, you’d be nitpicking.

“I thought the referee as well, for both teams, I thought the referee struggled for periods of the game. He didn’t have an impact on the game in terms of swaying the game one way or the other but these are all wee bits and pieces.

“For me, from a coaching point of view, we needed more energy. We needed more synergy coming out of defence. We needed to take the game to them and these are the things that are core values of what we do and that’s the disappointing thing. More than anything else, that’s the disappointing thing.”

Former Donegal forward Declan Bonner, manager of the Donegal minor side that also lost their final on Sunday, said he chatted with Durcan on Sunday night at the official banquet.

Bonner didn’t divulge what Durcan said regarding the goal concession though, speaking generally, the 1992 hero agreed that the sun is an issue for goalkeepers at that end of the pitch.

“We were just looking at it, even before the game started, and the sun was moving around,” said Bonner. “It definitely impacted, there is no doubt about that. I am not saying it was the factor [with the goal] but it possibly could have been.”

Durcan has a decision to make now about whether or not to stay on. At 31, he may potentially be among the players that McGuinness said are planning to retire.

“There are probably one or two players that won’t be back, if I’m gauging the thing right,” said McGuinness.

Interestingly, McGuinness, a father of five with a demanding job at Scottish Premier League champions Celtic, said his own position is actually a little more straightforward now than last year, as he weighs up a potential fifth season in charge.

“Last year, in many respects, was a very much more difficult position to be in, because when you get beat by 16 points in a quarter-final, you have to question yourself and you have to question a lot of other areas,” he said.

“We did all that and we were very thorough in terms of doing that so we’ll go through the same process now again. Whatever decision comes, we’ll be happy with it.”