McShea’s Say: No room for Donegal to stumble again

After beating the reigning All Ireland holders Tyrone on  Saturday Armagh will arrive in Clones on Sunday for their game with Donegal with their confidence sky high.

Sporting rivalries are fuelled by the passion of players and supporters alike, by the fact that it seems sometimes like nothing else matters but what happens on the field of play, and that nothing can come to any good unless your team does well.

For a sporting occasion to be wholly and totally immersive, and to allow us to be able to put aside all our cares and worries, and for our team’s victory to be the object of the day, there must be a sense of ‘us and them’.

Death mourned of former Donegal hurling manager Eamon Campbell

The Setanta clubman was manager when Donegal reached their first Nicky Rackard Cup final in 2006

As we walk up the hill in Clones, the people walking beside us from Armagh have the same hope and expectation; that same sense of excitement and anticipation that we have.

The only thing that separates us is geography and an allegiance to very similar people. We all from the same great GAA family, with our sporting hearts beating with anticipation.

Last Saturday was yet another graphic example of the GAA and its people when the Armagh and Tyrone followers stood as one to show their support for the McAreavey and Harte families and applaud the memory of Michaela Mc Areavey in response to a video of the offensive song about the murdered 27-year-old daughter of Mickey Harte.

Police say that they have yet to establish whether a crime was committed in the video. If not, then legislation should be rushed through to ensure that what took place on the video was a criminal act. Brian McEvoy the CEO of Ulster GAA is to be complimented on behalf of all GAA people for his role in ensuring that this wonderful show of solidarity happened in Armagh.

As for Donegal and Armagh round two, it seems like Armagh have used the qualifier route to iron out the weaknesses that appeared in Ballybofey.

While a team is always going to get lots of praise when they dethrone the previous years champions as Armagh did on Saturday one has to question why the winner of the man of the match accolade Stephen Campbell who was quite outstanding against Tyrone was not good enough to be picked on a regular basis by the management team.

Donegal trio to hit big milestones in qualifier

Michael Murphy, Patrick McBrearty and Ryan McHugh will reach significant appearance figures this weekend

Campbell is a very talented footballer and it is difficult to understand why the Armagh selectors took so long to realise this. Armagh followers seemed to think that after the win against Tyrone that they were destined for greatness. They stood for photos, had their jerseys autographed and generally celebrated to a serious degree.

Their issue this week will be coming back down to earth very quickly. Tyrone’s statistics in 2022 do not make impressive reading: they played ten games this year, lost 5 played one draw and won 4, and while Armagh were very impressive in beating them, Tyrone were not good.

Looking at the result of the league game between St Eunan’s and Kilcar at the weekend, I had to read the result twice. At half time in this game the score was St Eunan’s 1-0, Kilcar 0-1.

That is as close to a scoreless draw as I have ever witnessed in a half of Gaelic football. The full-time score was Kilcar 1-4 St. Eunan’s 1-1.This is a dreadful reflection on what is happening in club football in the county.

To win on Sunday Donegal simply must play to their potential and get away from the negative brand of lateral football which is simply a recipe for disaster. The reaction to the display against Derry is a worry as many fans were disillusioned and disappointed.

I would ask those followers to come back to Clones to support our team as Armagh followers will be there in huge numbers. It will require a change in tactics to get out of Clones with a win.

Donegal have not played particularly well this year, but they normally are at their best when the game is played at a high tempo, and they must not be dragged not a physical dogfight.

I was very impressed by Cavan’s attacking display against Donegal in the first half when their forwards stayed close to goal and quick quality ball was delivered to them.

It seems a long time since the telepathic understanding which Ryan McHugh and Michael Murphy had been seen in action when Ryan delivered quality ball to Michael on the edge of the opposing square.

It is time to see this type of football again.

Last week I said that we had quality players at our disposal, that has not changed, but our tactics need to.

All of Donegal hopes that we get back to basics and show our undoubted potential this weekend.