Hey lads

Listen very genuine comiserations. This is not a gloat. Far from it. we have had plenty of these days. We are no one to gloat.

Personally, as you may be aware from the main page, I am of the opinion you were beaten as much yesterday by your own management as you were by Dublin.

Can I get genuine opinions on 2 things.

1. Do you feel has Jim has the bottle to let the players at it, that ye could have done it yesterday in the 3rd quarter of the game?

2. What are ye're honest opinions of Boyles actions after Connolly's strike yesterday?

Thanks lads

Until we meet again

All the best

LW

Congrats to u and gud luck in the final.

On the first point, we will never know! We played to a system that requires us to take our chances when they come, as we dont create much over 70 minutes. We didnt take them in the first half and we suffered. Had Donegal thrown caution to the wind and broke down the pitch, we would have got slaughtered by u on the counter attack. Our passing and distribution was error ridden yesterday. This had as much to do with Dublins pressure as it had with our own concentration. Finally, I think that we have to look at your point as the big point for improving on next year. We somehow have to link attack and defense more effectively as by the time the ball gets into the forwards, it has grown a beard. Karl Lacey was badly missed when he left the pitch as he was our main attacking threat from defense to attack.

So, I think McGuinness got it right yesterday with the tactics of point a.

Point b, i think it is embarrassing to be a donegal person and watch a fully grown man throw himself on the floor like that. It is unsporting and will not do his career any favors. As for Connolly, I think he will regret reacting the way he did. There is no room for appeal under the new rules and he will miss the final.

McGee should have got a red for the follow up to the incident. Its all water under the bridge now, but costly for the lad.

Ultimately the sending off cost us the match. It seemed to focus dublin and settle them. The extra donegal player counted for nothing.

All in all, I think that u are spot on with point b.

Listen jims first year, hopefully we will improve attacking wise over his time in charge but give the man a break. He won ulster and a AI semi first year. As for boyle, he went down after two strikes. one to the face and one to the lower neck. So i am questioning if this happened to anyone it would enter their mind to go down. The linesman got it wrong so dont blame boyle totally.

Sound man LW. Well first of all, we all know that Mc Guinness is a very defensive manager but yesterday they were defending to the extreme. I felt with the likes of Murphy acting nearly as a defensive midfielder at times. But i still have respect for the man (McGuinness) for what excitement he brought back to the county.

The Connolly incident was intresting to say the least! I was seated virtually in the front row in the cusack right beside where this incident happened and i can tell you truthfully what had happened was that Connolly did make a sharp movement with his hands towards the donegal players face, not once but twice. However, the linesman did not see this as he was distracted by other players. This was what surprised me that he got sent off. Yet, Im not just saying this to be a begrudger, but even if the donegal player made the most of it, connolly still made an attack with his hand to his face which is clarified as a red card in nearly all field sports.

Hopefully we meet again some stage and that it will be a better specticall! Best of luck!

there has been a lot of rubbish written about donegals tactics yesterday....they committed 2 more fouls than dublin, whiledonegalplayed with one man inside the opposing 50,dublin played with two....so does that mean that dublin are equally culpable for the styleof football we seen...if donegal had won yesterday,we would be praising mcguinness tactics today and they were in this game the whole way...i'm sure donegal people were sick of being laughed at over the past few years...but not anymore..it's great tosee them annoying the dublin based media who have been way over the top in their condemnation ofdonegal...two teams contributed to yesterdays game, which i thought was an excellent display of defending and tackling by both teams

Lads, i'm not sure what game you watched yesterday, but Donegal simply ran out of steam in the second half due to their huge defensive work rate. Perhaps if Lacey had not got injured the contest might have been even closer. Anyway, the changes we made or were forced to make in the 2nd half did not deliver. Kevin McMenamin arrived for the dubs and enabled them to increase the tempo and win....Perhaps if we had brought on Neil Gallagher/Raferty, pushed Murphy to full forward, and had gone long ball direct we might have finished the game before the dubs got momentum. Anyway water under bridge, the better squad won on the day and good luck to them.......Hopefully, we will learn from yesterday, ignore the bulls*** about our style of play and comeback stronger next year...

Connolly should have got a yellow card.

If i was from donegal, i wouldn't mind what sort of football was played as long as donegal won. But for every other county in ireland and for the neutral it was one horrible spectacle to watch. I think donegal are too programmed to their system and couldn't adapt to plan b when the game was there for the taking. Why can't Donegal switch their style, youse did in the league against Derry and tore them apart but then reverted back to type in the ulster final against a very poor derry team. To see michael murphy play so deep for a forward of such talent is very depressing. Anyway I suppose Jim McGuinness can utilise his skills in sports psychology to motivate his players in the advent of all the negative criticism that has been thrown at their style of football.

Nice post Liam. I haven't heard any of my Dublin supporting friends gloating yet, which is nice!

1:
If any manager in the country has the bottle to do something, it's McGuinness. Going into the year, not much was expected of us. We would've been behind Tyrone, Down, Armagh, Derry and maybe even a few other counties in Ulster in terms of expectations, and we ended up 10 minutes from our second All-Ireland Final in 124 years.
I trust him to know what he's doing more than anyone else. If Murphy had put away a couple of the frees and 45s that he missed, or if Colm McFadden had scored a goal instead of a point, no one would be questioning him. I also think that losing Karl Lacey - IMO, the Championship's best player in 2011 - was a huge loss, that was not brought up at all in the post-match analysis. It would have been nice to get a few more scores, but I don't think McGuinness's tactics were to blame. We had enough chances, and we would have lost our shape had we pushed on.

2:
Honestly, he probably shouldn't have gone down as easily as he did. But, in saying that, in the heat of the moment, adrenaline pumping, I probably would've done the same, shameful as it may be. At the end of the day, results are what teams are measured on. Players, managers and even county boards will usually do what's best for the team, rather than what's best for the game (Dara O'Se not getting a suspension for the All-Ireland Final a few years back, after receiving a straight red for a punch in a club game).
Would I have preffered he had not gone down? Yes. But had it benefitted Donegal, and we ended up in the final, no one would remember that in 10 years time - they would just remember the fact that we'd gotten to the final.

HOW DARE HE GO DOWN AFTER BEING HIT IN THE FACE AND NECK ,ALL THIS ON TOP OF JIMS DISGRACEFUL DEFENCE TACTICS ANYONE WOOD THINK DONEGAL WERE AGAINST THE DREAM FINAL ,AND HAD THE CHEEK TO TRY AND WON THE GAME . AND DONEGALMAM YOU ON HERE TAKEING THE HIGH MORAL GROUND IF WE WON PEOPLE LIKE YOU WOOD BE THE FIRST CRYING LOOKING FOR TICKETS .

Could not agree more: Marty Boyle was hit twice.In the face and neck. Connolly deserved to be sent off, no argument. Lets face it, we did Dublin a favour. He was completely useless, a liablity and a one game wonder. No wonder he was hitting out! He had to hit a target eventually. Unfortunately for him he scored a red instead of a point.

A lot has been said about Boyle throwing himself on the ground and unfortunately this is what he did but having looked at Boyle playing football for N Conaill, I have to say he is an extremely honest, hardworking and committed player and this sort of antic was totally uncharacteristic of him and was a reactionary thing in the heat of the moment. He was actually hit/shoved in the neck, not once but three times! In general this sort of thing has crept into gaelic football more and more this past number of years at all levels ot the sport and I think that where it is seen, it needs to be tramped on more by officialdom.

Your right pike, but at the end of the day, the dublin lad was stupid to lash out no matter how harmless it may look, he actually had two or three swipes, crazy for a county player to be so silly, what was donegal player suppose to do, stand up and keep letting him shove him about the face? Any manager would tell his players that if they get hit to lie down instead of hitting back......

manager2
County: Donegal
Posts: 101

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HOW DARE HE GO DOWN AFTER BEING HIT IN THE FACE AND NECK ,ALL THIS ON TOP OF JIMS DISGRACEFUL DEFENCE TACTICS ANYONE WOOD THINK DONEGAL WERE AGAINST THE DREAM FINAL ,AND HAD THE CHEEK TO TRY AND WON THE GAME . AND DONEGALMAM YOU ON HERE TAKEING THE HIGH MORAL GROUND IF WE WON PEOPLE LIKE YOU WOOD BE THE FIRST CRYING LOOKING FOR TICKETS .


I dont get your point at all. I didnt like the way Boyle went down. I am not alone. Just because I dont like play acting doesnt mean I am anti Donegal. And yes, i would have been looking for tickets. If u had a son and he started play acting this way after seeing it on sunday how would u feel about the way the game is going?

Boyle was hit in the neck, doesn't matter how hard it was your not allowed to raise your hands to another players face/neck, it was a strike out from Connolly and although a little harsh, deserving of a red card. They are the rules, stupid from Connolly for striking out and Boyle was right to go down to get the free. You can't blame Boyle for getting Connolly sent off, that's down to the ref/lineman and Connolly himself.

I see people complaining about Donegal's "puke" football, its like Ireland playing Germany or Spain, going a goal up and defending for the rest of the game holding out for the win, nothing wrong with it. The Irish soccer team also play ***** football but i don't hear too many irish people giving out as long as their successful. Perhaps the whole country should complain after watching Ireland play a boring 0-0 game on Friday night! Cop on lads.

Same applys to donegal and irelands soccer team both can,t score and seldom try and always fail in the end.

my point is simple your embarrised to be a donegal man because of boyle . his only did what every other player in the country wood do after being hit no matter how hard .they lost the free witch was a certen point if we went up the pitch and scored it wood have put us 3 up they down to14 men wood have struggled we could have been in the final ,you wood mad looking for tickets not EMBARRASSED.

I have to say I don't think bottle had anything to do with our failings in the 2nd half, at least not on Jim's part. I felt our use of the ball after winning it in defence was utterly abysmal, the worst it's been all year and it cost us. Had we held onto the ball a little better I feel we would've won. A prime example is shortly after the sending off when the ball was played into Colm McFadden, he'd nobody around him, took his eye off the ball and lost it. This isn't a criticism of McFadden as without him we would've been even worse up front, it's just the main example I remember, and there were a lot of those examples really.

As for Boyle, he went down easy no doubt, but I don't see where teh grounds for an appeal are. Connolly raised his hands, it's sickening as a Dub I can imagine to see a man sent off when you see the opposition player go down as he did, but that's football, it's been in the game for years now. Also your number 11 I felt was extremely lucky to only see yellow for his hit on Lacey, really felt that was a red card.

Overall I'm proud of the boys but as Rory Gallagher has said, we never claimed we were perfect, we were very clear on where we are as a team and where we can improve. The criticism was way over the top I felt because it came as absolutely no surprise, it's like people were surprised we came and played defensively - we've been doing it all year?