Has the Donegal SFC become too stale and predictable?

The Donegal SFC is the dream but, for most, it will forever remain just that.

Looking at the current lie of the land domestically in Donegal there are the haves and there are the have nots.

But has the entire thing become too predictable and, at the same time, too boring?

Let’s use Donegal’s 2012 All-Ireland winning starting XV and used subs as a yardstick of sorts.

For the players that took to the pitch that day, their domestic roll of honour reads: Paul Durcan (1); Paddy McGrath (0), Neill McGee (3), Frank McGlynn (0); Anthony Thompson (6), Karl Lacey (1), Eamon McGee (3); Rory Kavanagh (6), Neil Gallagher (3); Ryan Bradley (0), Leo McLoone (6), Mark McHugh (1); Patrick McBrearty (1), Michael Murphy (3), Colm McFadden (0).

Subs used: David Walsh (0), Martin McElhinney (0), Christy Toye (0), Dermot Molloy (5).

Again, firing a random dart at it or, say, beginning with Naomh Conaill’s emergence as a serious senior force in 2005, there have been five different winners of the Dr Magure over an 18-season span.

The Glenties men have picked up six of those while St Eunan’s have also accounted for a half dozen in that same period. Next in the pecking order are Glenswilly on three while making up the remainder are Gaoth Dobhair, two, and Kilcar, back in 2017, on one.

There is plenty of debate that the battle for the Donegal SFC used to be much better, more exciting and more wide open.

But forgetting formats and styles of football for just a moment, let’s travel back in time, again 18 campaigns the other direction, 1987-2004, to see just how competitive it was.

In the exact same amount of seasons, there were eight different names etched onto the Dr Maguire. Now, I know there is still, to this very day, raw debate regarding the 1997 championship.

For objectivity’s sake, I’m going to go with the official winners list but for my own sake (and to spare John Haran a twitter rant) I will qualify that year’s entry with an asterisk.

That roll of honour reads: Killybegs (5), Aodh Ruadh (4)*, St Eunan’s (2), Kilcar (2), Ardara (2), Gaoth Dobhair (1), Naomh Columba (1), Four Masters (1).

For fun, and just like above, we can again use that generation’s best footballers, the 1992 All-Ireland winners, to see how their own personal hauls stack up.

Now, many of the below’s club careers stretch back pre 1987 so it’s not exactly like for like but it still makes for interesting reading.

Gary Walsh (2); Barry McGowan (5), Matt Gallagher (0), Noel Hegarty (1); Donal Reid (0), Martin Gavigan (0), John Joe Doherty (1); Anthony Molloy (1), Brian Murray (2); James McHugh (3), Martin McHugh (3), Joyce McMullin (2); Manus Boyle (5), Tony Boyle (0), Declan Bonner (0).

Subs used: Barry Cunningham (5).

For the above, the old format and route to glory was pretty straight forward. The anticipation and excitement ahead of the SFC draw was palpable. That’s not an exaggeration - it was always the talk of the entire county whenever it came around.

All you were guaranteed was a home and away outing in the first round with some duels maybe having to be decided by a third game.

But in 2013 that system was scrapped and ever since we’ve had some convoluted variation on a group format. This term’s draw, made back in June, barely registered with anyone. Genuinely, no one cared.

And the truth is supporters will only really start paying attention to it when it’s whittled down to the last eight. But we’ll also have a preliminary quarter-final round to get past before we even get to that juncture.

Even then, when we eventually do get to that point, how many realistic or potential winners will there be in the quarter-finals?

Now, those pairings will be made by way of an open draw so it might yet spark when the knockout stages do come around. If two big dogs were pitted against one another there we could well have an early heavyweight casualty.

Suddenly, the road or path to a final might open up for one of the so-called also rans. But even if that were to happen, the chances are we're not going to have any real fire and brimstone encounters. Donegal club football just doesn’t do that anymore.

It’s a solid argument to say that regardless of the format, be it a group stage or whatever, the style of football Donegal clubs now play is the real culprit.

 Watching Naomh Conaill and St Eunan’s refuse to lay a glove on one and other in the Division 1 league final last weekend and being told by most it’ll be the exact same come their SFC group tussle; it begs the question what’s changed?

With a subjective microscope now in hand, and with the ear of three-time winner and Donegal legend James McHugh, I pose a few simple questions to see can we get to the bottom of it all.

Q: Has the SFC club season in Donegal become too predictable?

JMH: “It probably has. If you look to Tyrone, they probably have seven or eight contenders. The other side to that is that the Tyrone winners are making no impression on the Ulster Club. It’s a very hard thing to get right. I don’t think we can lay blame there, at the fixture makers or the county board’s feet. I can look back at the Donegal SFC over a 45-year period, watching and playing. And I have to say that period from around 2017-20, when you had the likes of St Eunan’s, Gaoth Dobhair, Kilcar and Naomh Conaill all battling it out; that was simply brilliant. They were by far the best championships I’ve ever seen in Donegal The two semi-finals, 2019, and I know we were beaten by Gaoth Dobhair, but I think there was something like 8,000 at them in Ballybofey. The standard of football was unbelievably high and so too was the entertainment. Gaoth Dobhair’s Ulster win the year before just brought the best out of the three others that term. I never saw the likes of that. Killybegs, at the time, had an amazing squad of players. Perhaps they would have held their own there. But people can say things were great back in the day. I was lucky enough to win three championships with Kilcar. We’d great battles with the likes of Killybegs, Aodh Ruadh and Naomh Columba at the time.But there is no comparison between the Kilcar team of old and the one we have the last few years. We had a great team but the side now is littered with absolute stars. Yeah, they’ve only won one championship but that’s not always the right barometer. I remember this group winning at underage - we won two Minor A titles and that was the bedrock. That’s why you’d hope to maybe see a Four Masters or a Termon bridge the gap now in the next few years. Right now, Gaoth Dobhair have drifted somewhat because of injuries and emigration. But I still feel Kilcar are capable of putting it up to both St Eunan’s and Naomh Conaill. Even Glenswilly, they look like they are stirring once more. It’s just a pity there weren’t a few more like them - they just get on with it and they’ll cause anyone of the others bother on a big day. Outside of that, I just don’t see anyone coming up on the inside”.

Q: Has the way we find a winner become too complicated?

JMH: “Maybe it has but can anyone else come up with anything different or better? I was involved here in Kilcar back in 2011. We played a preliminary round game with Malin in April and the second leg in May. That meant a side was gone from the SFC before summer even started. And that wasn’t right either. Before the split season came in I always thought the Donegal SFC was one of the best ran and fairest competitions in Ireland. The reason for that was when Donegal’s season came to an end, county players weren’t thrown out in club action the following week. They always got at least a fortnight to three weeks. With the split season now, maybe the format can be revisited or tweaked. I also often wonder if we could market our championship better? We shouldn’t take it for granted that we have everyone’s attention. There are a lot of distractions and other options now out there - that’s something that has really changed in the last 30 years. The GAA aren't the only show in town anymore. So maybe that’s an area we could try to push”.

Q: Do we have to accept that the product or brand of football has changed?

JMH: “Football probably has got too negative, football in general I mean. There was a time when the county player marked the county player. I remember in 1984, Four Masters and Aodh Ruadh were going so well. Joyce McMullin and Sylvester Maguire were midfield and they had an amazing battle. Today, we just don’t see those same sort of duels. It’s really the team that gets themselves over the line. The thing about so many of those old so-called ‘classic’ club games; I’m lucky enough to have a few on video. And when you sit down and watch them they’re not as brilliant as you once thought. I meet Kilcar people that still rave about certain club finals we won but I have them on video and trust me they aren’t always the spectacles we think we remember! Take the 1992 All-Ireland final or the 1993 county final when we beat Killybegs, they are highs in your own head simply because you won them. But some of the modern stats men or managers would be tearing their hair out at some of the stuff!

Q: Are there other factors to consider in this comparison? Things like emigration or the time and actual commitment now going into club football, it’s at a serious level…

JMH: “The world is certainly smaller. Lads can go off to America and still come home to play in their own club championship. I went to the Tech in Carrick and I remember in the late 70s and early 80s Naomh Columba were totally and utterly ravished by emigration. I’m quite sure they’ve lost three or four from last year’s starting side as well. Every team feels that. There are vibrant and thriving GAA communities now in every major city in the world. The GAA actually gives young lads and girls a great chance to head off and be a part of that somewhere else. Back in the day, there weren’t maybe as many external distractions either. The easiest thing to do was gravitate towards a Fintra or Towney to take in a big game. The commitment though to club football is at a serious level now - it’s gone through the roof. What does need attention maybe is our league, it’s not competitive, Division 1. It’s very easy to throw the toys out of the pram and ask the powers that be to find a solution. But the clubs probably have to look at themselves and their own approach to it. For some reason Division 1 isn’t competitive anymore".