Back to the Future in Donegal?

By Declan Bogue

THE recent appearance of Jim McGuinness across the media is bound to cause a flutter of annoyance for the Dublin football project.
There had been whispers and rumours that he had been involved in the current set-up, but the current evidence is compelling. A photograph doing the rounds of a Belfast hotel lobby of McGuinness standing up, talking to the seated Donegal manager Declan Bonner and selector Paul McGonigle - who served in the same role for McGuiness in 2014 - had been intriguing, but the other day those suspicions were put to him.
"No, no coaching sessions," he said. Asked had he given a talk to the group, he smiled and repeated, "No coaching sessions." Which leaves things as obvious as you can get them.
He said during an interview with Ger Gilroy on Off The Ball that a number of senior players had a drink on Monday and decided to call him up for a chat, enthusing that the Ulster final win had "felt like the first one."
He also let slip a couple of references to the team, talking about Michael Murphy's role, explaining, "…we were finding the balance…" We. This hardly comes as a surprise. Despite his various roles with Celtic since leaving the role as Donegal manager at the tail end of 2014, McGuinness has always kept a serious involvement with the tactical side of Gaelic football
His weekly column in the Irish Times has become essential reading and his punditry performances on Sky TV along with Peter Canavan and James Horan are unparalleled for insight into what the top teams do, how and why they do it.
Even during his stint as assistant manager of Beijing Sinobo Guoan in China, his contribution in print, gleaned from studying TV pictures provided more cutting edge than the pundits who were present at the ground, albeit with significantly less ability to articulate what is truly going on.
The general play of Donegal in Ulster - and this is not ignoring the disappointing and awful effect the absence of Patrick McBrearty is going to cause them - has been excellent. The patterns of play have been similar to when their counter-attack game has worked the best, indeed hiding the fact that when Donegal are without the ball, they have always been as defensive a side as has ever been seen in Gaelic football, but the quality of their attack has masked that, leading some to even hail them for their difference in approach. Sure, he would be straight up in maintaining he has not taken a coaching session, so maybe his work now is purely strategy.
It taps into the sense that McGuinness has always had an askance view of Gaelic football that, when utilised in a county team, is very dangerous for others.
It's something he wishes to bring to the world of soccer. Asked what his next move is, he said, "I'd like to ¬manage again now because I’ve been sort of formulating this idea and this philosophy and this concept for so long now."
That's the words of a serious coach, not the kind you could imagine David Moyes or Tim Sherwood uttering as they wait for the latest vacancy to arise.
Living in Glasgow now has taken McGuinness out of the Donegal goldfish bowl. While he was at home, he might have reserved a certain suspicion of Bonner - who was a team mate in 1992 of course - as Bonner made his journey back as coach way through the underage ranks and was a prominent media commentator in the county, not afraid to question McGuinness on some aspects of football.
The suspicion now is that Declan Bonner is anything but an autocrat in his management of the group. It is believed that captain Michael Murphy's role has evolved to that of a part-time tactician to go along with his legendary leadership, his 'obsession' with football as McGuinness termed it this week.
Karl Lacey is another one that has kept up the strong links with McGuinness and between the various discussions and chats any serious football men would have, it would seem that the years spent away from Donegal football has left the Glenties man missing the cut and thrust of the sport. Between Bonner, Murphy, Lacey and McGuinness, Donegal is the common purpose. McGuinness remains the last man to have beaten Jim Gavin's Dublin.
In his autobiography, he recounts a moment with Donegal's late goalkeeping coach Pat Shovelin where he had spent a day studying Stephen Cluxton's kickouts and compiled a dossier in order to beat Dublin.
It's clear the subject still has his attention. In acknowledging that Laois brought a tactical development that caused Dublin a measure of difficulty in the first half of the Leinster final, he added that there are ways and means to compile scores against them. He sent up a few flares this week by making the reasonable suggestion that Dublin should not have more home games than Dublin in the Super 8s.
The work has already started. But in truth, how long has it been going on?