Donegal boss Jim McGuinness: ‘We just didn’t perform - that’s the bottom line’

Jim McGuinness offered up no excuses in the wake of Donegal’s All-Ireland final loss to Kerry, bluntly stating that they showed up and his side simply didn’t.

The Ulster champions were rocked by a ferocious start from the Kingdom and at one stage found themselves cast adrift by nine points just 18 minutes in.

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Donegal steadied themselves somewhat to get back to within five, nearing the break. But coughing up another cheap turnover on the hunt, Kerry countered and with David Clifford swinging over a two-pointer after the hooter, Jack O’Connor’s charges held a firm 0-17 to 0-10 lead.

Clifford and Seanie O’Shea made sure Kerry again started fast when the action resumed.

Donegal did dig deep and again wrestled matters back into four at one stage. But Kerry would pull away once more and with Joe O’Connor lamping in a late goal, Kerry eased to a dominant 1-26 to 0-19 win.

Speaking after, McGuinness admitted Donegal just never got up to the pitch of the action and when they did threaten to, they were often the architects of their own downfall with some poorly conceded turnovers.

“It’s a bit early for all of that, a wee bit raw,” the Donegal boss explained when asked to put an exact finger on what he felt went wrong.

“We didn’t perform, Kerry did. That’s the bottom line. They started very early and got a foothold in the game.

“I thought we responded quite well in the first half on our attack. But they might have scored from their first six attacks so we were struggling to deal with them in that period.

“They went for a lot of twos and hit them as well. David Clifford coming onto the ball on that loop, we did a lot of work on him and on managing him.

“I thought Brendan McCole did quite well for periods. But it does take more than one person to shut him down.

“He kicked some brilliant scores. From our own point of view, we just made too many mistakes. We did things we don’t normally do. We just had too many turnovers and that meant we were just chasing our tails.”

At 0-15 to 0-10 down near the end ofthe opening 35 minutes, and with some wind in their sails at that point Daire Ó Baoill, in for Ciaran Thompson, looked to ambitiously source Michael Murphy when the better option might have been to look to land the last point of the half and potentially cut the margin to four.

Instead, Kerry picked up that wayward pass, broke and eventually worked Clifford in for a huge two-pointer, gifting Kerry an eventual seven-point lead at the changeover.

“The couple of moments before half-time, it’s a five-point game and we lose possession. It then ends up seven at the break and that was tough.

“Had we worked that and got a score, we might have ended up going in four down. And it might have been a different dynamic because of that.

“That was fairly significant. Hugh McFadden and Jason McGee came on and we were able to squeeze the game a little.

“But with the quality Kerry have, they were able to keep the scoreboard ticking over. We got back to four points at one stage but we missed three in a row.

“The momentum was there but that’s a double-edged sword. Because when it falls the wrong side of the post like, that the energy in the room no sooner disappears.

“Our supporters have been brilliant all year but I got the sense today they were just there waiting on us to catch fire. And that didn’t happen.”