McShea's Say: Donegal’s disappointing disjointed display in Killarney

Going to play Kerry in Killarney at any time is a formidable challenge, but with a depleted team it will always be so much more difficult.

Playing without Michael Murphy, Michael Langan, Jamie Brennan and Caolan McGonagle because of injury left Donegal seriously depleted, but the manner of the defeat was to say the least a major cause for concern for Donegal’s management team.

In recent years Donegal’s form has been staggeringly various. It is becoming impossible to predict which Donegal will turn up on any given Sunday and perhaps they don’t know themselves.

Donegal do not want to get the reputation of being a team that will provide plenty of enjoyment but lose their way when the chips are down. While a number of the Donegal side played well, the collective performance was very disappointing, and once again there was a distinct lack of penetration in this display.

The attack seemed to be devoid of any tactical awareness and whilst playing with a gale force wind in the second half, the reluctance to play early ball inside was hard to understand. In the absence of Murphy it seemed that moving the returning Hugh McFadden to the edge of the Kerry square would have made much sense.

On his return after injury, Hugh had an excellent first half and with his fielding ability he would have caused problems for Kerry’s last line in an area where they are not renowned for winning high ball.

The first quarter of this encounter saw Donegal compete effectively and they had the edge in the middle of the park, while once again goalkeeper Shaun Patton’s kicking was intelligent and effective.

Patton was beaten by what was effectively a miskick by David Clifford for a fortuitous Kerry goal, but in such awful weather and a difficult pitch Patton was simply unfortunate.

He is one of the top keepers in the game, and the position he plays is most unforgiving if an error is made. Caolan Ward at corner back never gets a headline but never seems to do anything wrong while Brendan McCole has made the number 3 jersey his own and he had another very impressive display on Sunday.

Eoghan Ban Gallagher covered every blade of grass once again, but his style of play is much more suited to the half-back line and he should be relocated to this line of defence. Peadar Mogan won lots of ball in a very impressive first half performance and he must be one of the first names on the team sheet going forward.

A telling statistic is that Kerry seldom lose games when they are favourites, while All-Ireland minor success in some counties sometimes seemed like making a rod for your own back, but Kerry’s success in that grade has delivered some outstanding talent to this Kerry side. One of those minor stars Sean O’Shea exerted a profound influence on this game. From frees and play he simply excelled, and true to form he hurt Donegal every time he won possession.

An excellent ball winner O'Shea makes something from balls hit too high, too long or away out on the wing, but because Kerry have other top forwards the opposition can not give O’Shea their exclusive attention.

In football if things go right then it is a great help to a team to be relaxed and confident, but if things go wrong, it is tough to get footballers out of strolling mode. David Clifford’s goal had a major outcome on Donegal’s mindset because on such a dreadful day it was always going to be difficult without such a setback.

But Kerry were a different team in that second half, suddenly brimming with confidence, while Donegal looked tentative and ponderous. In the final quarter Kerry pulled away comfortably and proved that with their tails up they will take a lot of stopping this year.

Strangely it wasn’t as if Donegal did not have the chance to score the goal that would have brought them right back into this game and showed that there was genuine substance behind their endeavours, showing that Kerry’s dominance was just slightly false. Unfortunately, Ryan McHugh was in on the Kerry goal, but his footballing instinct saw him pass the ball to Patrick McBrearty and the chance was lost as the pass was too strong.

On Saturday night, the All-Ireland champions Tyrone are in Ballybofey for another tough test for Donegal. Even though Dublin and Kildare are already propping up the League table, defeat for either Donegal or Tyrone in this game will see the losers firmly in the relegation mix; not an attractive proposition.

It was difficult not to admire Tyrone winning last year’s All-Ireland, sure they were talented but other teams blessed with the same ability have not emulated Tyrone’s achievement of last year.

Donegal v Tyrone games are always difficult to predict, but once again I will let my heart rule my head and hope that home advantage will see Donegal prevail, but to do so Donegal’s attack will need to be an awful lot better than they were in Killarney.