THE FACE OF football has changed in the last 10 years.
And Donegal are seen to have been a significant contributor in that rethink as they aimed to break the stranglehold of Tyrone and Armagh in Ulster before taking their chances in the All-Ireland series.
Photo caption: Donegal defender Frank McGlynn in preparation for the Ulster SFC quarter-final against Fermanagh on Sunday. Photo: Geraldine Diver
Time has changed; preparations have changed and for Donegal, results have changed.
“When we were minors, sit-ups and press-ups at training were our strength and conditioning,” says 29-year-old defender Frank McGlynn.
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Rory Gallagher’s side open their Ulster SFC on Sunday when Fermanagh are their visitors to Ballybofey for the provincial quarter-final.
And since their now infamous mauling at the hands of Armagh at Crossmaglen in the first round of the 2010 All-Ireland qualifiers, Donegal have won 16 of their last 18 fixtures in Ulster.
Statistically, they might still be the team to beat in the northern province. But the make-up of its championship means the price and the paupers are never far from one another’s’ sides.
[adrotate group=”37″]Since Jim McGuinness came in ahead of the 2011 season, Donegal won three out of four Ulsters and last year Gallagher’s first term saw victories over Tyrone, Armagh and Derry before a one-point final reversal to Monaghan in Clones.
Fermanagh are the only team that Donegal haven’t met in the province in that timeframe, with their last altercation being a fourth round qualifier in 2006, which Brian McIver’s Donegal won 0-11 to 0-8 in Enniskillen.
McGlynn, a raw teen from Glenfin in the year he made his championship debut, was a substitute that afternoon at Brewster Park. Many see the marauding defender, who is equally comfortable as a man-marker or in the half-back line and comfortable on the ball, as the blueprint of a modern Gaelic football.
[adrotate group=”38″]“From 2006 on in the off season, you were let do whatever you wanted from August until January when you met up again,” says McGlynn of the more thorough approach being adopted nowadays.
“You’re doing more in those months now, and I suppose it does make it easier getting when you go back into pre-season and start the heavy training for the following year.
“There have been very few months when you have actually done nothing. You’re always doing something whether it be the gym or just a bit of jogging to keep yourself ticking over and that definitely helps.”
Frank McGlynn receives his 2015 Donegal Senior Footballer of the Year award from Donegal County Board chairman Sean Dunnion. Photo: Geraldine Diver
Before that steep climb, though, there was a plateau. Between 2008 and 2010, Donegal lost three successive first rounders in Ulster when Derry, Antrim and then Down left the Twin Towns with victories.
For someone with a career like McGlynn’s, gaining success that might’ve never been anticipated, there’s still a yearning to continue.
He’s long-since married and now to former Donegal ladies captain Diane Toner and has three children – the oldest, Harry, being almost four.
[adrotate group=”46″]“It’s not easy, but you do it because you want to do it. Nobody is putting a gun to your head to ask you to do it,” he says.
“Families and people at home get great satisfaction from seeing you run out on a pitch with ten, twenty, or thirty thousand people looking at you. It’s a great sense of pride for them.
“It’s a decision that you have to make at the start of the year, if you’re willing to make those sacrifices. When that decision is made, you stay the course and you stick with it, and the only thing you pray for is that get your rewards at the end of the year.
“We’re used to playing Ulster Championship games, and we know when we go out on the pitch, we have a job to do.”
But playing football for his county, despite the increased workload, is part of his DNA. It’s just who he is and what he does. Football might’ve change. But Frank McGlynn’s attitude to it hasn’t.
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