What lessons can Offaly learn from Donegal?

[Bord na Mona man]

First off, I'm delighted to see Donegal reach the All Ireland. It's great to see new teams and colours on AIF day. The conquered and colonised in Offaly may enjoy seeing the Kerrys or Kilkennys continually prevail, but I get bored of the same teams divvying up the titles.

Also, I'm pleased they are doing well because of the overly negative press they have gotten.
At this stage I'm surprised Jim McGuinness bothers with interviews any more. He continually gets accosted by disrespectful questions about negative or defensive tactics. The same people wouldn't dare badger Brian Cody continually with questions about Kilkenny's physicality for example.

It's only gradually that pundits are actually starting to give Donegal some credit for their masterful displays. Yesterday they schooled Cork in every facet of the game and it was a 7 or 8 point beating rather than a 2 point win.

I'd genuinely wonder about anyone who still calls it puke football. The football they played was as precise and tight as you'll ever see, there was barely a stray ball from all day. Nearly everything they did was a synchronised symphony.
Cork on the other hand were left ragged by the end. Hitting in hope and hoping that individuals could conjure up something off the cuff.

The prevailing nonsense from some quarters implies that Donegal are somehow being bad sports by not offering opposition attackers 50-50 chances. It's like they expect an inter county match to resemble the kickaround at a 6 year old's birthday. 'Give little Bernard a turn with the ball now'. 'Little Gooch hasn't had a kick of it yet, don't be standing in front of him, it's not fair'.

As if there was some sort of gentleman's charter that you went man-to-man and won games by winning more of the match ups than your opponent. Pundits love to talk about the 'key individual battles' and maybe this new style of play makes their analysis obsolete.

Anyway, enough of that. Surely Donegal's rise to prominence should be seen as a great fill up for Offaly?

Donegal of 4 or 5 years had a lot in common with Offaly. Continual issues of indiscipline off the field. Players dropping off panels like flies. Players itching for the chance to jump on the plane to America for the summer. Chaotic appointing of managers. Players not being committed, or perhaps not being correctly motivated. An old school footballing mindset.

In 2009 Cork beat Donegal by 1-27 to 2-10, I doubt it was much consolation to Donegal that they played football the 'right way' that day. I remember watching the demeanor of some of the Donegal players in that match and I genuinely thought that Donegal were banjaxed for a generation. Some of them played like they'd been dragged out of The Big Tree 15 minutes beforehand. They also looked like they'd rather be in The Big Tree for that matter. Three years ago the Donegal jersey was as worthless as Anglo shares.

We can learn plenty from Donegal. I'm not suggesting we simply try and copy some of their tactics. We'll see of plenty of counties doing this now. It's the work ethic and collective mindset that would give Offaly a huge boost if it could be recreated.

I'm not naive enough to think that Offaly could replicate Donegal to the last. We don't have the same playing population and reserves of talent. We're starting from a much lower base - Division 4. The strict training regime is probably on the extreme side and it would take an extraordinary manager to get total buy-in to it.

However there is huge scope for improvement in Offaly and it's great to have a blueprint to learn and borrow from.

Thoughts?

[jimbob17]

Excellent post BNM Man. I think a lot can be learned from it, mostly by the county board. Donegal have about 12 or 14 people in the backroom team, approx 8 of whom are paid professionals in their chosen field and a guy at the top who knows exactly what he is looking for. The county board meanwhile would not support such a concept and therein lies the problem. I am not talking about spending money for spending money sake but there are plenty of people (some in neighbouring counties) out there with expertise that will not be harnessed for the sake of saving a few quid. They will pay minimally on everything from gear to management support structures and managements are just about getting by in the various areas as a tokenistic approval from the board!!! If McDonnell does well and i hope that he does, it will be in spite of the boards support rather than because of it!! They should be back training with all available players from beaten clubs once the county quarter finals are finished but they wont be for one reason only ie pursestrings...... Rant over.....

[Lone Shark]

In a case like this, you'd love to see the Donegal county board accounts to set them alongside ours. You couldn't ignore the fact that they probably spend buttons on their hurling teams, in fairness. Equally they'd be a good county for raising revenue, since they'd have a huge emigrant community and diaspora. Fundraising should, in theory at least, be a lot easier. Though admittedly Offaly wouldn't be bad either, at least in terms of people retaining their identity.

On a player for player basis, footballers in Offaly should be looking at this from a "why not me" perspective. You look at the Donegal team and Colm McFadden is incredibly talented, but not any more so than Niall Mac. You have a couple of other elite players like Neil McGee and Karl Lacey, guys who are supremely talented defenders, but you have others, guys like Mark McHugh, Anthony Thompson, Leo McLoone, Ryan Bradley and Neil Gallagher. All of these guys are going to be there or thereabouts in terms of All Star awards this year, win or lose, and yet you couldn't say any of them are exceptional. Certainly there are twenty or thirty guys in Offaly who should look at them and say that if I apply myself like they do, I can be as good as that.

Of course the support structures do need to be put in place, at least within the bounds of the possible. A little bit of information here is a dangerous thing - you need to be sure that guys moving up to a new level in terms of nutrition, training and conditioning have the tools and the knowledge to do so correctly, in order to make sure that they don't end up obese, emaciated, injured or God knows what.

You also need to know that you're going to get buy in from key players, that you'll be able to put together a panel around that them that is willing to do whatever it takes, and that you won't get the usual backbiting from around the county about how much better we could be if only player X or Y was in the squad, the same player who's probably sitting on a bar stool feeling hard done by.


From an Offaly point of view, you'd have to hope that Donegal win. Cork have some of the most natural footballers in Ireland and have streams of good players coming up along the line. Dublin have depth and resources the likes of which we can only dream of. Even Mayo is a football obsessed county with a very high standard of domestic championship. They have sixteen senior teams, almost all of which would be in the top five or six clubs in Offaly, and they have three or four more intermediate clubs that would be competitive in terms of going for a quarter final place too. Donegal on the other hand are the kind of team that we could aspire to be. An awful lot would need to change, but it shows what the potential is when you apply yourselves correctly, put a plan in place and follow it, rather than adapting and changing the whole time, always just about doing what needs to be done, instead of doing what should be done.

[DAF]

Donegal are far more individually talented than Offaly, Neil McGee is one of the country's best full backs and has been for a few years now,Karl Lacey has won 3 all stars already and another on the way,Neil Gallagher has been a very good player for while but never seemed to be consistent, the same appiles for Rory Kavanagh, Mark McHugh is a brilliant reader of the game,Paddy McBrearty is one of the best young forwards in the game,Michael Murphy and Colm McFadden are class acts.The likes of Ryan Bradley and Frank McGlynn have improved immensely this year as have David Walsh,Leo McLoone and Anthony Thompson , and remember they can afford to be without one of the country's best wing backs over the last 10 years.

McGuinness has done a great job but he has had some good players to work with and the media dont seem to be recoginsing that.What Donegal lacked was discipline and structure and consistency and McGuinness has brought those things to the team since he took over,they'd be no where if he didnt have some excellent players to work with

[bracknaghboy]

How in the name of Christ can Offaly learn anything from Donegal? Lads seriously come on. The gap between the 2 counties is astronomical. Kildare destroyed us. Cork destroyed Kildare. Cork had no answer to Donegal. If we start comparing ourselves to Donegal or in anyway looking to them for lessons then we may as well jack it in altogether.
Offaly need to take baby steps. We need to learn from the likes of Wexford and Longford who have dragged themselves up from Division 4 and have made themselves competitive. With the exception of Niall Mc there is no other Offaly player who would make the Donegal panel.

[townman]

simple Donegal have the footballers offaly haven't so we will learn nothing from Donegal untill with get the talent in offaly

[Bord na Mona man]

How in the name of Christ can Offaly learn anything from Donegal? Lads seriously come on. The gap between the 2 counties is astronomical. Kildare destroyed us. Cork destroyed Kildare. Cork had no answer to Donegal. If we start comparing ourselves to Donegal or in anyway looking to them for lessons then we may as well jack it in altogether.

Jesus, a real ambitious visionary we have here!

I love the logic. We dare not contemplate learning anything about how Donegal vastly improved themselves, until we are close to as strong as them.
How do we lift ourselves to that level with this learning ban in place though? Chicken and egg.

[Bord na Mona man]

simple Donegal have the footballers offaly haven't so we will learn nothing from Donegal untill with get the talent in offaly

The learning ban strikes again!
So in the meantime we don't bother our bollixes trying to improve the setup that's already there.
We'll wait for 'talent' to just magic itself into existence and then try and then start learning about how to improve senior set up.

[Bord na Mona man]

The likes of Ryan Bradley and Frank McGlynn have improved immensely this year as have David Walsh,Leo McLoone and Anthony Thompson

I don't doubt they have improved, but perhaps they are also getting more accustomed with the system.
If the 5 of them togged out for Offaly, would we be a significantly more talented side?

[Truth as i see it]

How in the name of Christ can Offaly learn anything from Donegal? Lads seriously come on. The gap between the 2 counties is astronomical. Kildare destroyed us. Cork destroyed Kildare. Cork had no answer to Donegal. If we start comparing ourselves to Donegal or in anyway looking to them for lessons then we may as well jack it in altogether.

Jesus, a real ambitious visionary we have here!

I love the logic. We dare not contemplate learning anything about how Donegal vastly improved themselves, until we are close to as strong as them.
How do we lift ourselves to that level with this learning ban in place though? Chicken and egg.

Yeah couldn't agree more but the thing you have to know about these guys is that if Offaly start improving they would have nothing to whinge and moan about, Their entering the oul Git stages of their lives

[DAF]

The likes of Ryan Bradley and Frank McGlynn have improved immensely this year as have David Walsh,Leo McLoone and Anthony Thompson

I don't doubt they have improved, but perhaps they are also getting more accustomed with the system.
If the 5 of them togged out for Offaly, would we be a significantly more talented side?

Perhaps not as if they played for Offaly they would have been scandalously unprepared.I think everybody in the county who has been to any matches in recent years recognises how badly prepared Offaly are.The first thing McDonnell needs to do is sort out the fitness of the players, if he does that we can at least be competitive .We still wouldnt be close to Donegals level as they have some class footballers which we lack but there is no reason we cant be competitive in Leinster like we were from 97 up until 2007.Its scandalous that we haven't won a Leinster championship match since we beat Carlow in 07

[bracknaghboy]

How in the name of Christ can Offaly learn anything from Donegal? Lads seriously come on. The gap between the 2 counties is astronomical. Kildare destroyed us. Cork destroyed Kildare. Cork had no answer to Donegal. If we start comparing ourselves to Donegal or in anyway looking to them for lessons then we may as well jack it in altogether.

Jesus, a real ambitious visionary we have here!

I love the logic. We dare not contemplate learning anything about how Donegal vastly improved themselves, until we are close to as strong as them.
How do we lift ourselves to that level with this learning ban in place though? Chicken and egg.

OK. So by your logic if you wanted to teach a 7 year old child some mathematics then it would be best to jump straight into the honours leaving cert maths syllabus rather than the basics first? I never mentioned anything about a 'learning ban'. In fact I'm saying we should be realistic and learn from teams that have made realistic progress. Sure didn't Tom Coffey say that the first problem he had was getting the lads to turn up on time for training when took charge! Anyone trying to implement Donegal or Kildare type training will drive away the handful of fellas left that are looking to wear the Offaly jersey!

[Daleamar]

How in the name of Christ can Offaly learn anything from Donegal? Lads seriously come on. The gap between the 2 counties is astronomical. Kildare destroyed us. Cork destroyed Kildare. Cork had no answer to Donegal. If we start comparing ourselves to Donegal or in anyway looking to them for lessons then we may as well jack it in altogether.

Jesus, a real ambitious visionary we have here!

I love the logic. We dare not contemplate learning anything about how Donegal vastly improved themselves, until we are close to as strong as them.
How do we lift ourselves to that level with this learning ban in place though? Chicken and egg.

OK. So by your logic if you wanted to teach a 7 year old child some mathematics then it would be best to jump straight into the honours leaving cert maths syllabus rather than the basics first? I never mentioned anything about a 'learning ban'. In fact I'm saying we should be realistic and learn from teams that have made realistic progress. Sure didn't Tom Coffey say that the first problem he had was getting the lads to turn up on time for training when took charge! Anyone trying to implement Donegal or Kildare type training will drive away the handful of fellas left that are looking to wear the Offaly jersey!

Did you read what he wrote before you went dogging it? Of course Offaly can learn lessons from Donegal, and should, and as will all the other counties. It doesnt mean if we learn them well be contesting an All Ireland.

At least thats what I took from Bord na Mona man's post

[Bord na Mona man]

How in the name of Christ can Offaly learn anything from Donegal? Lads seriously come on. The gap between the 2 counties is astronomical. Kildare destroyed us. Cork destroyed Kildare. Cork had no answer to Donegal. If we start comparing ourselves to Donegal or in anyway looking to them for lessons then we may as well jack it in altogether.

Jesus, a real ambitious visionary we have here!

I love the logic. We dare not contemplate learning anything about how Donegal vastly improved themselves, until we are close to as strong as them.
How do we lift ourselves to that level with this learning ban in place though? Chicken and egg.

OK. So by your logic if you wanted to teach a 7 year old child some mathematics then it would be best to jump straight into the honours leaving cert maths syllabus rather than the basics first? I never mentioned anything about a 'learning ban'. In fact I'm saying we should be realistic and learn from teams that have made realistic progress.

How about the pupil (Donegal) who always scored a C grade in maths exams every year. He changes teacher, works hard gets extra grinds and then becomes and A student.

Surely the pupil who scores E grades (Offaly) can take similar steps and become a C student?
Or should he just sit on his hole and be all defeatist?

[bracknaghboy]

Did you read what he wrote before you went dogging it?

Yes