Eight observations from the Allianz Football League: Donegal are a running machine and McHugh is the key cog
LINK MAN: Ryan McHugh has been awesome in Donegal's league campaign thus far. Against Armagh at the weekend, he had 36 possessions and kicked two points. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
The address by the president is positioned at the centre of Congress. Integration and the GPA. Review committees for hurling and Gaelic football. Ten years ago, these were the issues that were addressed. Ten years on, these are the issues that will be addressed.
The GAA Annual Congress will take place in Donegal this weekend. Jarlath Burns is set to go where Liam O’Neill went in 2015 at the Slieve Russell Hotel, Cavan. That was his final address as president. He had espoused the established an FRC that introduced the black card and the advantage rule and extended an olive branch to the GPA in the form of an invite for their chair to join the fixtures work group.
O’Neill served from 2012 to 2015. A dream that first took hold when he was an eight-year-old had been fulfilled but his reign was not without controversy. Most famously, the Sky Sports deal. He has consistently defended that move ever since, pointing out that an overwhelming majority backed it at Congress and Sky retained the rights in subsequent negotiations.
But pointedly, he championed it for one main reason: RTÉ were not doing a good job. The relationship with the national broadcaster was damaged by their reporting around the deal. Two bodies that once stood hand-in-hand started trading toe-to-toe. The front-of-house leader was dismayed at the RTÉ’s critical coverage.
We are talking, it should be said, about a national broadcaster and Ireland’s largest sporting organisation. In this context, fairness is required, not loyalty. RTÉ must serve its audience before it serves its rights partners.
That said, they do need each other. There was a benefit to having the interprovincial trial games broadcast on television. RTÉ were involved in the first explainer series around the seven core changes with Jim Gavin and Éamonn Fitzmaurice. It suited everyone to get that message out there.
Service providers, not cheerleaders. That is the ask.
“Explaining is fine, but trying to lobby is another thing. I think that’s tricky,” said Paul Flynn on Second Captains this week when speaking about his fellow Sunday Game pundits who are also FRC members.
For the second time across the three rounds of the league, Joanne Cantwell went looking for answers to some pertinent questions on the Sunday highlights programme. Newly-appointed FRC member Peter Canavan accepted there were communication issues. A 20-second limit on kickouts was not correctly disseminated to teams or supporters. He rightly pointed out that this is a wider issue that the association needs to address.
This comes after the rulebook fiasco, managers with obsolete rule changes and the lack of GPS and statistical data. Kinks, basically, that need to be ironed out. Nobody promised perfect. Pointing out flaws is a fundamental part of this entire process and will accelerate improvements. The association should be grateful for that.
Here are eight observations from the National Football League.
The raw numbers are striking. Donegal had 45 phases or team possessions on Sunday. A stunning 87% ended in a shot. 39 of the 45 were through-the-hands attacks. Put simply, Jim McGuinness’ side run the ball and are awesome at it.
It should be said they did log over 50 kick-passes in the game, but the vast majority were short, uncontested passes that suit their style.
The exception to the rule came midway through the second half. An Ethan Rafferty cross-field ball was intercepted deep inside Donegal’s half. Armagh were down to 14 men and elected to only leave two defenders back while chasing the game. It left Niall O’Donnell wide open in space. Ryan McHugh kicked the ball forward to him and Paddy McBrearty scored.
There are a few interesting things at play here. First, the way Armagh defended that break was clever. They took advantage of the devalued black card by trying to create the 12v11 in attack. Rafferty raced back on the counter, but Barry McCambridge also went to the goal. O’Donnell could have had a two-point attempt under no pressure but instead, they worked it inside and only scored a point.
The second standout part of that play was McHugh. He was awesome once again in Ballybofey as their link player. The number five had 36 possessions. He finished with 12 kick passes and scored two points.
Donegal are currently second-favourites for the All-Ireland title, yet McHugh remains an extraordinary longshot for Footballer of the Year. If the Ulster champions can maintain this current trajectory, they will go close and so will he.
A dozen did it. Twelve points from Diarmuid Murtagh last Sunday saw him overtake Dermot Earley Snr as Roscommon’s top scorer. His total is 19-333 (390). It is an awesome return.
And it is inflated by the new two-point arc. Murtagh kicked four two-pointers against Monaghan. Under the old rules, he would still be behind Earley. Of course, he would eventually catch him anyway. The same cannot be said for others.
Mayo’s Cillian O’Connor is currently the top championship scorer of all time. The closest active player is Kerry’s Sean O’Shea with 6-204 across 38 games. That is an average of 5.9 points per game. It would take almost 42 matches to catch O’Connor if that trend continues. Attainable yet still difficult. Add in the two-point dynamic? Suddenly it is a distinct possibility.
O’Connor took on shots from two-point range when the reward was smaller too. The Mayo forward hit two points that would be conceded two-pointers in the 2024 championship, against Galway and Roscommon. In the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final, he scored 0-3, two of them from two-point range.
A new scoring system will see records shattered. However, not all competitors in the contest are playing by the same rules. It is true that an increase in the number of championship games has benefitted the modern era yet scoring averages help in that regard (A nod to Offaly legend Matt Connor who holds the record for the highest average in the top 30). There may come a time when championship scorers have to be split between pre-2025 and post.
Last year, Mayo mustered 21 shots against Tyrone to hit 1-11. Fast forward to last Sunday and it was strikingly similar. 21 shots for 0-12, with one two-pointer added in. Tyrone went from 26 shots to 25.
Galway and Derry met in the 2024 championship. Galway had 22 shots for 2-14, Derry had 27 for 0-15. This time Galway’s return was 1-13 from 20 shots, Derry hit 0-16 from 29.
This trend continues elsewhere. Kerry had 24 shots for 1-14 against Dublin in 2024. They had 21 shots for 1-3-9 (18) in 2025. Donegal broke the mould. In the 2024 league final, they had 29 shots for 15 points. It was 40 for 21 on Sunday.
Speaking of shooters, Shane Walsh has kicked 19 points in three games for Galway so far from 15 shots. 16 of those points came from two-pointers (four 2pt frees). His total so far is 0-19 (4 tps, 4 tpfs, 1 free).
After five minutes in Tralee, Dublin were two points down, had two attacks and no points to show for it. However, goalkeeper Evan Comerford did have five possessions, all in the opposition’s half.
They kept the ball for just under two minutes from the throw-in. The away side had 67% possession at half-time and were 11 points down. This was part of the plan. They wanted to keep their phases low (16), milk the clock and slow the game down. Their goalkeeper helped them do it. Kerry should have done the same in the second half.
“We basically needed to get more out of our attacks in the sense of holding the ball for longer,” said Jack O’Connor. They did bring Shane Ryan forward for one spell that surpassed 150 seconds, with seven possessions for the goalkeeper. Eventually, Micheál Burns tried to force it and was turned over. He was replaced soon after.
In Newry, Meath took advantage of the 12v11 by taking almost four minutes off the clock after a black card for Ronan Jones. Again, goalkeeper Billy Hogan was heavily involved with ten possessions. The home crowd began to protest, eventually complaining about just two defenders in the Meath half even though they were allowed to do so because of the black card. Supporters wanted chaos. Meath had control.
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Tony McEntee is never one to mince his words. His take on Sligo’s third successive defeat in Division 3 was typically unsparing.
“I’m not disappointed with the result,” he told Ocean FM. “I’m disappointed with the performance. In many ways, we were abject and a pale shadow of the team that we think we are.”
He said that they were wrongly penalised with a three-up breach as well as a 50m advancement but stressed it did not impact the result. McEntee continued to be frank when asked about the decision to take goalkeeper Aidan Devanney off at half-time. Sligo struggled on their kickouts early on.
“I don’t think Aidan had a good first half. Also, we had to change it up for the second half. We needed the keeper out the field to add to our forward play.” Ultimately, a side with top 16 aspirations are now in deep trouble.
“We are going from the start of the year where we looked at promotion potential, trying to stay in competition for that today, now we are looking at a relegation battle. We need to get probably three wins in our last four games. On our performance in our first three games, you have to believe that is something we will struggle to do.”Â
As pointed out by Colm Shalvey, Darren Hughes marked his 19th national league campaign by wearing number 19 in Dr Hyde Park on Sunday. He came on after 62 minutes to mark what was remarkably his 200th senior appearance for the county.
Exciting times for Kildare. They are undefeated at the top of Division 3 and their development squad recorded their first victory in the Development League with a one-point win over Meath on Monday night.
Brian Flanagan had referenced the formation of a second panel with Eddie Holton named as their manager. The entire panel was also published by Kildare GAA, allowing their clubs to celebrate them.
“These are lads doing their utmost to get on to the senior panel; 90 per cent of that squad have been with us over the past number of months,” said Flanagan.
Louth and Cavan are also in the secondary competition. There are several players involved who should go on to make a mark in the intercounty championship. Kildare were helped to a win on Monday thanks to three points from half-time substitute Daniel Flynn.
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