Old Jim McGuinness Foe Slates Donegal For Complete Tactical Failure In All-Ireland

For Donegal, a long winter of reflection on their All-Ireland final defeat awaits.

Jim McGuinness' men had been heavily tipped to take Sam Maguire from early in the season, and built on last year's semi-final exit by reaching the decider against Kerry.

However, after hugely consistent showings throughout the season, Donegal faltered in the final, with Kerry running out decisive winners by ten points on the day.

A huge part of that success was down to the brilliance of David Clifford from corner forward.

It was no surprise to see Clifford running riot, with 0-9 from play, after much of the build-up had been spent debating how Donegal should deal with the Footballer of the Year-in-waiting.

Brendan McCole was tasked with man-marking the Fossa man. However, Donegal's focus on Clifford allowed his brother Paudie to run the show from full-forward, and left Dylan Geaney, Joe O'Connor, and Sean O'Shea with far more space in attacking spaces.

Ahead of the game, former Donegal star Kevin Cassidy had said that Donegal should not heavily focus on marking David Clifford and should instead focus on stifling the forward line as a whole.

Ultimately, Donegal stuck to their guns with zonal marking, neither taking Clifford out of the game nor nullifying the threat of his teammates. It was a decision that baffled Cassidy.

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Writing in Gaelic Life, Kevin Cassidy followed on from his pre-match suggestion on how Donegal should handle David Clifford.

Cassidy had suggested Jim McGuinness could choose to let Clifford roam free and instead focus on the rest of the Kerry forward line.

Ultimately, Donegal took neither approach, and Cassidy says that they got things "completely wrong" by not either double-teaming Clifford or focusing on his companions in the Kerry forwards.

"Only Jim knows why he didn’t take that approach," Cassidy said.

Paudie [Clifford] had 76 possessions, scored three points and I think he had his hand in at least eight more. Seán O’Shea also contributed heavily on the scoreboard, kicking some very important points.

Obviously we are not privy to what goes on behind closed doors, but to not double-team David Clifford or go after the two lads mentioned seemed very strange.

It would have been hard to do both but at the very least we should have gone after either David or the two boys, but we just stuck to our zonal marking.

What will be most frustrating for Donegal fans was how little was done to address this glaring setup issue as the game progressed.

There is, of course, a dotted history between Kevin Cassidy and Jim McGuinness, with the former being banished from the Donegal panel after a dispute over an interview in 2011.

However, perhaps even McGuinness would agree with Cassidy's assessment of where things went wrong for Donegal on Sunday - and where he himself may have been to blame.