Jim McGuinness can’t keep bailing Donegal out - Eamon McGee 

Eamon McGee says Donegal can’t keep turning to Jim McGuinness to get them back on track. 

And the 2012 All-Ireland winner hopes that Karl Lacey’s return to the Academy set-up might mean that a coaching pathway or a stepping stone type of succession might develop there now as a result. 

McGee says the fact that Lacey was prepared to put his previous high-profile and acrimonious departure from the Academy aside and to come back in from the cold, shows how much he still cares about the potential of that original concept.  

“Karl Lacey was so good at the Academy,” said said McGee, whose Laochra Gael programme will be shown on TG4 tonight, Thursday, at 9.30pm. “And not because he was one of Donegal’s best players but because he’s so professional. 

“He’s well qualified and he buys into the Paul Kinnerk game-based model. He’s one of the best coaches about so having him involved is a great thing for Donegal.

“The easiest thing for Karl would have been to walk away. But it’s so important that we get some kind of structure in place. We can’t be calling Jim again in five, six years, and we have to put something in place.

“We’re caught up in the moment now and it’s great. But we have to build and have a foundation where we’re not only producing good players, which is what the Academy will do, but also producing good coaches and giving them experience. 

“So the entire Academy system has so much potential and I think it’ll be crucial for us going forward on a number of levels”.

Meanwhile, McGee says he was initially surprised that younger brother Neil segwayed straight into coaching so soon after hanging up his boots. 

But explained that the only one that could have turned his head in that direction so soon was Jim McGuinness. 

“If you read Jim’s book, the regard that Jim holds Neil in, and it’s even when, during his time with Donegal, Neil was one of his lieutenants.

“So if anybody was going in, Jim just wants people that see the game through his eyes, that he can trust, and Neil would have probably been top of the list. 

“And obviously Colm McFadden, his brother-in-law is there, so it’s good for Neil and I think he’s learning a lot about it.

“He’s learning about the coaching, and he’s open which I’m surprised at because there’s times down through the years that I would have just seen Neil as a closed book, that’s the way, this is the way you play the game now. But he’s in that learning mindset which is so important as a coach, so it’s good for him.”