Anton Carroll - one of Donegal's first ever Ulster champions - slams 'inept' showing against Kerry

We received the following email this week commenting on Donegal's performance against Kerry and in recent games from 1972 UlsterSFC winning player, Anton Carroll, from Gaoth Dobhair.

A cháirde,

Donegal's performance of last Sunday was unquestionably inept. I am surprised that Kevin Cassidy has critiqued it so benignly.

In my view, it deserved severe criticism and, as a minimum, objective appraisal that would, at least, identify the weaknesses and strengths in the team's display, with a view to informing a more successful approach in the remainder of this year's league campaign.

In fairness, the team started well, dominating the mid-field and displaying a high level of competence in all elements of the game's skill set. However, it was plainly obvious that there was little appetite for attempting scores. Things didn't quite fall apart until the second half.

Clearly, there was no sensible, coherent game-plan; players soloing over and back; Kerry press; and then, infuriatingly, the ball is worked back to the keeper. You can't win playing backwards, especially when the wind is howling in your favour!

And to compound the disastrous strategy, you place your dominant midfielder on the edge of the square, but no long ball is delivered to him. Now, the dominance at midfield is surrendered and the midfielder on the edge of the square is redundant. An acute absence of the smarts! There was no convincing plan and there hasn't been one for a long time.

Saturday night next will, very likely, bring the curtain down on any prospect of even a modestly laudable outcome to this year's league campaign. After that, the County Board cannot defer, any further, a thorough review of how the performance, in recent years, of its main team is marked by so many unexpected and spectacular failures.

Beir bua,
A. Carroll.