McConville Explains Why Armagh Would Never Have Made Donegal Parade Error

While much of the post-match discussion relating to Donegal after their All-Ireland final loss to Kerry related to the Ulster side's tactical failings, there was also been some interesting points made about their conduct before throw-in.

The parade is much loved tradition before each All-Ireland final, with the Artane Band leading both sets of players on a lap around the pitch. One of the notable aspects of iteration before the football final was Donegal's decision to break away from parade well before it finished, with Kerry remaining in formation until its conclusion.

The move was booed by some inside Croke Park at the time, with Paul Flynn among those to suggest that it could have negatively impacted the team's performance in the game.

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It is certainly clear that Donegal did themselves no favours with their conduct during the parade, with their attitude to the tradition proving to be quite different to other teams in the past.

Speaking on Second Captains, Oisín McConville summed up just how much emphasis his former Armagh and Crossmaglen manager Joe Kernan used to put on the parade.

It just shows how much planning goes into it. [Donegal] thought 'it's different, there's a lot of waiting around and this is not the way we normally approach it'.

It was very noticeable. The President's thing in the last two weeks, because of the way he's moving himself, has taken longer and the game hasn't started on time. They've probably taken all of that into account...

Joe Kernan used to focus in on the parade in a big way. In fact, every time we played, even if the Armagh flag was on the inside, he would actually put it on the outside. He would actually get it changed to the outside.

The reason for that was that there was no stopping on the thing, you could walk around and not get caught up in it.

Any time I've played under Joe Kernan we've done that, including club finals that's eight times. That's definitely something he was very conscious of, and that you stay in the parade right until the end.

That was just a decision he made and that something we done. I think it sort of worked for us as well.

It is certainly to see how the attitude towards the parade has changed in some quarters down through the years, although Kerry did still seem to treat it with plenty of respect.

As for Donegal, it will be interesting to see if they would make any changes should they find themselves in this scenario moving forward.