Donegal brush Meath aside as McGuinness' focus turns to Kerry once again
DONEGAL'S MAN: Donegal manager Jim McGuinness. Pic: Bryan Keane/Inpho
Jim McGuinness has a long memory.
He made note earlier this year of how his team and Jack O’Connor’s were considered to be among the slowest to adapt to the new rules.
Well, look who’s smiling now.
On the back of this piledriving win and Kerry’s impressive if less comprehensive disposal of Tyrone, the teams from the nose and chin of this island will meet 11 years on from their first final meeting.
Up to All-Ireland quarter-final time, the counties had certainly been flagging in the goals and two-point departments compared to the rest of the field.
In Croke Park where orange flags aren’t raised as much as elsewhere but there is space to conquer, they have been emancipated.
“We just felt that it was important to see how those changes would grow, if you like, and then bring our own template to how we want to play the game to that,” said McGuinness. “And it’s served us well. I think Kerry have done the exact same thing. I think there was a lot of commentary maybe throughout the league that ourselves and Kerry were the only two teams that weren't embracing the twos (two-pointers).
“I don't think Kerry have done a huge amount differently. They have their own way of playing as well, and they play with their head up, they're looking for dink balls, they're looking for third man runners, they're looking to support.
"In the same way we support off the shoulder, they're looking to do it the exact same way only with a different kick or whatever it is beforehand.”
Kerry seem to have been on McGuinness’s mind for quite some time and his thoughts might have drifted to them long before the final whistle here with the result well and truly in the bag in the third quarter.
Their five-point half-time lead, 0-13 to 0-8, could have been much better than it was but their efficiency rates rocketed in the second half like they did here in their quarter-final against Monaghan.
Second-half goals by Oisín Gallen, Ciarán Moore and Conor O’Donnell sent Donegal on their merry way to the final. Gallen’s 42nd-minute goal coupled with Michael Murphy’s last point and last act of the game a minute later catapulted Donegal into that heading.
When Moore was put through to bulge the net a second time, seven minutes later, after a great turnover by Finbarr Roarty initiated the attack, the difference had widened to 11 points.
A Shaun Patton 45 following a Billy Hogan save from Ciarán Thompson stretched the margin to 12.
Conor Duke and Eoghan Frayne stemmed the haemorrhaging albeit temporarily, as the wound gushed with a flurry of Donegal scores, including O’Donnell’s 58th-minute green flag.
This was the first time since the 2014 semi-final win over Dublin that Donegal had netted thrice in a championship game in Croke Park. For a team known more for their point-taking, the element of scoring diversity pleased McGuinness.
“There's a good bit of commentary about how we play sometimes, and maybe it is a wee bit different than other teams, but without covering the same ground all the time, that's who we are like at this stage of the game. We know what we want to do and it's been in our blood for a long, long time and we just try to tap into that.
“I think it was Finbarr that turned that one over (for Moore’s goal). A brilliant turnover and we got all the way up the pitch and made it count, you know, which is great, it's encouraging, we're creating.
“Even in the first half, we created some goalscoring opportunities and we kind of felt that if we could keep at it and keep trusting ourselves, we could get into more goalscoring opportunity moments and that's the way it panned out.”
After an excellent start by Donegal, profligacy was the name of game for the two teams for most of the half. Meath scored six times in the first half but registered nine wides and dropped two short.
As Robbie Brennan admitted afterwards, they had made life too easy for Donegal although the retirement of Bryan Menton through injury after 21 minutes drained Meath of much kick-out confidence.
Donegal didn’t hit their first wide until the 17th minute by which time they had six points kicked into the breeze, which included a two-point free by Murphy. Meath themselves had raised two orange flags via Frayne and Ruairí Kinsella.
Kinsella’s in the 13th minute had brought Meath within one and after Michael Langan’s first point Keith Curtis soon cancelled it out. However, Meath had to wait 17 minutes before their next score, which came courtesy of Curtis.
In that period between those points, they struck three wides and dropped a couple of attempts short. Donegal struck five in a 10-minute period but were hitting the target some of the time and their lead expanded to five by the half-hour mark.
As McGuinness alluded, Donegal threatened to turn the screw with sights of goal.
Donal Keogan kept out a Conor O’Donnell shot in the 31st minute and Hugh McFadden’s effort was denied by Billy Hogan a couple of minutes later after Caolan McColgan’s point attempt struck the post.
Successive Meath points by Curtis and Jordan Morris gave the Leinster runners-up a little respite but no sooner had Morris scored his point that it was being cancelled out by Gallen’s second score and Murphy had goal on his mind with the penultimate attack of the game but settled for a point.
It was one of the few things Donegal compromised on as they zoomed into the final.
M. Murphy (0-6, 1 tpf, 1 free); C. McDonnell (1-3); O. Gallen (1-2); C. Moore (1-1); M. Langan (0-4); P. McBrearty (0-3 each); C. Thompson (0-2); S. O’Donnell, R. McHugh, S. Patton (45), P. Mogan, D. Ó Baoill (0-1 each).
E. Frayne (0-5, 1 tp); R. Kinsella (1 tp), K. Curtis (0-3 each); J. Morris, M. Costello (free), C. Duke, S. Rafferty (0-1 each).
S. Patton; F. Roarty, B. McCole, P. Mogan; R. McHugh, E. Gallagher, C. McColgan; H. McFadden, M. Langan (c); C. Thompson, S. O’Donnell, C. Moore; C. O’Donnell, M. Murphy, O. Gallen.
P. McBrearty for M. Murphy (45); J. McGee for H. McFadden (50); C. McGonagle for C. McColgan (52); D. Ó Baoill for R. McHugh (55); O. McFadden-Ferry for P. Mogan (59).
B. Hogan; S. Rafferty, S. Lavin, R. Ryan; C. Caulfield, S. Coffey, D. Keogan; B. Menton, A. O’Neill; M. Costello, R. Kinsella, K. Curtis; C. Duke, J. Morris, E. Frayne (c).
C. Gray for B. Mention (inj 21); E. Harkin for A. O’Neill (46); J. McEntee for S. Lavin (50); B. O’Halloran for K. Curtis (57); S. Walsh for R. Kinsella (inj 62).
P. Faloon (Down).
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