THERE’S a lot to be said for a team that comes out and just answers a ream of questions in the one go.
Donegal did it with purpose last week, even if it didn’t yield a winning result against Monaghan.
This Donegal team has been written off so much in the last few months and in the last couple of years.
‘Donegal have had their day’.
‘Donegal are on the way out’.
‘Donegal look tired.’
‘Donegal have lost their hunger’.
‘Donegal are an ageing team’.
Every week, there’s a new story. A different stick to beat them with.
Because of all that and also after the way last season ended against Mayo, Rory Gallagher will probably have felt a bit of pressure to deliver and it’s something that those players will have taken in too.
We saw from the off a Donegal team that was fired up.
Make no mistake, the closer we got to the start of that game, the paint on the Donegal dressing room will have been peeling.
This was clearly a game they were up for.
From the throw-in, Michael Murphy powered through and the Karl Lacey of old comes up to score a point.
It was something that showed what it meant to Donegal.
Last week, I suggested that Donegal would be best suited playing Murphy out the field and felt that he could influence the game better from deep.
[adrotate group=”53″]Based on what I saw last week, I’ve changed that opinion. The way the Monaghan defence is looking and the sheer panic Murphy’s presence caused I think we should leave him in for 80 per cent of the time, along with Patrick McBrearty.
If we had him and McBrearty in there all the time, imagine the power and the pace we’d have to trouble them with. It is one way of beating a blanket defence anyway.
Sure, bring him out the odd time, but he showed last week just why there’s a big push to get him inside more often.
He is much more dangerous in there.
The tactic of putting him one-on-one against Vinny Corey worked a treat.
Vinny got a lot of plaudits for his performance, but I’d argue that how he was doing in his duel with Murphy wasn’t in the rulebook. The constant pulling, dragging and generally putting him off his game: That’s not the game.
Man-for-man and pound-for-pound, Murphy turns him inside-out. That is where the winning of the replay could be.
[adrotate group=”70″]Corey hit Murphy a punch during the game that no-one has mentioned or talked about. That showed fear in Corey. He is under so much pressure he’s willing to punch Murphy.
It’s not right and it’s not on – but maybe it’s something Donegal can really exploit in the replay.
Last week, I touched on a few pointers that Donegal needed to be careful of. By and large, they were the factors that influenced the game.
We went long with the kick-outs and they weren’t an issue at all. There was never a time when a kick-out was caught on the ’45 and it resulted in a score.
If you look at the fear that was in the Donegal kick-outs against Fermanagh, that could be multiplied by ten against Monaghan.
Remember the game against Tyrone last year when Niall Morgan got involved with the crowd in Ballybofey and they were on his case. We needed to avoid that so Donegal were absolutely right to go long and let the players around the middle compete for the ball.
[adrotate group=”74″]Conor McManus got a lot of plaudits last week, but Paddy McGrath, who was marking him, had an exceptional game. McManus scored once from play and it was a wonder point.
In terms of what Paddy could actually do, McManus scored just one point.
A lot is being made of McManus’s display, but McGrath worked him well, I felt, and those marauding runs he made too was still a feature, even though he was on Monaghan’s talisman.
That says a lot about the confidence he’s playing with right now. He’s playing his best football ever in a Donegal shirt and he could have been in for a goal chance at one stage, too, had the ball been worked his way.
I think sometimes when the backs are to the wall it is really when we see the best out of the likes of McGrath, Karl Lacey, Anthony Thompson, Eamon McGee and Martin McElhinney.
That was certainly the case last weekend. Those men were out with all guns blazing.
The discipline – or, rather, the lack of it – in the tackle was a costly thing for Donegal. It is perhaps the easiest side of the game and one that just requires a bit of extra thought process.
We became so used to it doing 2011 and 2012 especially. The whole thing was almost based entirely on discipline.
Unfortunately we have lost that. With it, we’d have won handsomely on Saturday. There were silly wee things that cost us, a free given for a pick off the ground and Thompson – who had a brilliant game – just made the wrong decision at the wrong time for that last free.
It’s vital to note, too, that Donegal missed 1-4. There was the goal chance for Kieran Gillespie, the three kicks missed by Murphy and the other one that McBrearty dropped short. Put all of them in the mix and going for us and Donegal would have won well.
[adrotate group=”68″]Goals will win this game. We let Monaghan back into last week’s game when we shouldn’t have. We created a lot more, but that’s something Malachy O’Rourke will really zone in on now and we have to be ready to adapt, but must make real use of things that we’re in control of: Discipline and how we use the ball.
There are goals, and plenty of them, in this Donegal team.
Eoin and Ryan McHugh are two men who really make Donegal tick. They’re almost unmarkable at times. That energy and ability just to nip in around people is priceless.
You can’t have too many players like that, but with them and Martin O’Reilly and then the power from Rory Kavanagh, Martin McElhinney, Anthony Thompson, Karl Lacey and Frank McGlynn there’s a good mix.
McElhinney was excellent last week until he was black-carded. He was holding it, taking the hits and shipping it off to the next man, at the right time all the time. It really opened up the play for Donegal.
Trying to open up holes in a side like Monaghan isn’t easy to do, but drawing them out and releasing them is what works. Releasing the McHughs and O’Reilly will cause them no end of trouble.
We even saw last week when Kieran Gillespie ghosted in for his goal chance how much of a threat Donegal can be running with the ball.
It’s like a racehorse. Someone getting in a position like that and just taking off, even when a defender sees him, he has a jump ahead of him.
[adrotate group=”43″]We saw that a few times on Saturday night and it’s something that would give me good confidence for this weekend’s replay.
Replays are massive psychological battles. It’s funny because Donegal will feel they played quite well and Monaghan will be thinking that they let themselves down.
Replays are funny. You need to up the game by ten per cent in a replay.
The one thing to remember is that replays are never based on the game that went before it.
We drew with Dublin in an All-Ireland quarter final in 2002. We came out of Croke Park and a former Donegal player said ‘there is an All-Ireland in that team’. We were thinking: ‘Jeez aye, that’s right, we can’.
We went away and trained as normal.
Dublin went away, tore strips off themselves and then tore strips off us in the replay. 1-14 to 0-7. Humiliating.
Armagh used to have a good record in replays. They were so good at figuring out strengths and weaknesses and then playing for that. Once they had a chance, they just got at you.
It’ll be interesting to see which team has the other best figured out after last week – or maybe someone will come up with a new plan that will secure an Ulster final place.
Karl O’Connell was the trump card for Monaghan last week and he’ll be someone Donegal will be focussing on, as will the face of Owen Duffy, another big outlet for Monaghan.
[adrotate group=”46″]The two Hughes were non-existent, but we should expect them to be more involved here this time.
Donegal approached last week with real energy and enthusiasm. It was brilliant to see.
Toe-to-toe, Donegal matches Monaghan.
Donegal had their mojo back and they have to drive that on this weekend.
We owe Monaghan!
BLACK PERIL
THERE are three or four incidents every day now that is a potential black card, but maybe only one in those three or four actually results in a black card.
It says a lot when there is so much debate on the thing. It shows just how confusing the black card is now, even after all this time.
The cop-out for the referee is the yellow card, which appeases the crowd most of the time.
The referees are already wired up. Would it be so hard to give the fourth official, or someone, the power to be in a referee’s ear to say: ‘That’s a black card’.
The referees need back up. They have a million and one things going through their mind when they’re trying to make a split-second call at speed.
And anyway, would pausing for a second to consult take any longer than it does to stop the whining and moaning at a referee after an incident happens? It really wouldn’t slow the game up.
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