Jason McGee has played through pain barrier for years - Jim McGuinness 

Jim McGuinness says Jason McGee has put in serious rehab work in order to bounce back from hip surgery. 

The Donegal midfielder previously went under the knife for a similar complaint back in 2019 while groin and back issues have also plagued the 6’5” midfielder, who made his senior inter-county championship debut against Antrim back in 2017. 

McGee’s latest procedure was carried out last summer, shortly after Donegal’s All-Ireland SFC loss to Galway in Croke Park. 

He’s been one of the team’s best players as Donegal captured the Ulster title with a penalty shootout win over Armagh. But a hip issue flared up once again in the All-Ireland series loss to Clare last June. 

Speaking after his side’s 1-25 to 1-15 Ulster SFC preliminary round win over Derry on Sunday, McGuinness says he hopes that a detailed and meticulous rehab means McGee can finally put his best foot forward from here on in. 

He explained: “I did say previously we had a plan for Jason and that’s gone well. What you have to appreciate is that Jason has had to do an awful lot of work on his own. 

“He had to move through those gears at the right pace. It’s his second major surgery on a hip. The science moves on and develops and we’ve done our best with him on that front. 

“Jason has nudged all that along and really pushed hard. He was disciplined in that process. The hope now is that there is no reaction. 

“And if that’s the case, we’ll nudge him on a little bit further again”. 

The manager previously disclosed that the player had very little work done before being sprung, from the very off, in that spectacular ambushing of then high-flying Derry, in Celtic Park, last season.

Given that McGee reached such a level in the Ulster SFC in 2024, the fact that he did so while playing through the pain barrier makes the feat even more impressive.  

“He hasn’t really played pain-free for about three years,” his manager revealed.  “So we hope now he can get into a rhythm where he’s pain-free. And from there, we’ll just keep building him”.

In McGee’s absence and, indeed, with Michael Lagan also currently looking to get back up to speed, Hugh McFadden has really stepped up to the mark. 

The experienced Killybegs man looks learner than ever and, as a result, is covering the yards in the kind of fashion that has made him one of the standout performers of the campaign so far. 

“There is nothing like competition and lads breathing down your neck and that’s the reality. And that’s the aim across the board, to create a squad where lads are all punching each other. 

“We need as many bodies as possible that can step up and do a job. And Hugh has done a brilliant job so far. He’d a very good league campaign. 

“And we’re probably going to have a bit of jostling around the middle of the park now in the next few weeks and, as a manager, that’s great. That’s exactly what we want”. 

Meanwhile, McGuinness commended the calmness his side showed as they opened their defence of the Ulster SFC with that ten-point win over Derry.

With the score level at 0-5 apiece after 27 minutes, Donegal began their gallop towards the end of the first half with Daire Ó Baoill the bloodline. 

When a Derry goal came from Dan Higgins breaking through on 32 minutes, Ó Baoill - who had picked a couple of two-pointers beforehand- ran into space to shoot a Donegal goal on 34 minutes, which meant for a 1-12 to 1-5 half-time lead.

Derry had the wind at their backs in the second half and trimmed their arrears down to just two points within three minutes, with notable scores from outside of the arc by Conor Doherty and Brendan Rogers. Again though, Donegal showed their instant ability to bounce back and kicked seven on the bounce.

“We’re very happy to get through,” McGuinness said. “It was always going to be a very tough task against Derry. They brought a lot of nous and intelligence to their gameplay. They have a lot of ability and they asked a lot of questions

“That was always going to be the case, and we had spoken a lot of that we were hopefully prepared for that as best we could. 

“The first half was classic Ulster championship. It was cagey and there was a lot of intelligence on the pitch and they asked certain questions and we were trying to break free and get them in the counter. They were getting very big moments on the counter as well, none more so than the goal.

“We eventually settled and found a good rhythm in the second half into the breeze that's very pleasing to get that score up in the board at the end of the day.”

With the show firmly on the other foot following Donegal’s surprise 4-11 to 0-17 victory at Celtic Park 12 months ago in the provincial quarter-final and McGuinness’s team tagged with heavy favouritsm, they eradicated any doubt front of 15,023 at MacCumhaill Park.

“It would be very disingenuous of me to even go down that road considering we were the role reversal from last year,” McGuinness added. “Everybody wrote us off, but we still believed we could do it so obviously, we knew Derry could come and think the same.

“We felt we could get a very good idea of what they wanted to do. They play very intelligently on transitional moments, and then they can create situations and then establish attacks.

"They were doing that extremely well in the first half so it was about trying to manage that and navigate that and then obviously, on top of that, then try to reclaim a bit of that. We managed it much better in the second half and kept them on the peripheries, and we were more structured and solid.”