Patched-up Kerry and wounded Donegal will want to steer clear of sudden-death route

Micheál Clifford

IF IT IS really true that the journey teaches you a lot about the destination, Donegal are likely to travel to Killarney eager for the right kind of education.

If that is the case, it is an education that has got off to the worst possible start.

Donegal supporters will travel in some strength south this weekend, but for many, initial plans of a weekend spent in Ireland’s tourism capital have given way to financial well-being.

Eye-watering prices aimed at a very different market have lent the expedition the vibe of a backpacker’s conference as accommodation is sourced far and wide, with the likelihood that the Limerick economy may benefit from a pre-Ryder Cup appetiser.

As one disgruntled supporter – confusing this writer as a representative of the Kerry tourism sector – put it, “Would someone tell them in Killarney that it is the Donegal turf cutters that are coming down the weekend and not the bloody Dallas Cowboys oilmen.”

Point taken before a pint is taken.

The more substantial education, though, is the curiosity of how a Jim McGuinness team will reset on the kind of summer road never travelled before.

Only once previously in his seven years in charge has McGuinness hit the All-Ireland series without being in charge of Ulster’s standard-bearers, and that was a short trip to Carrick-on-Shannon for a not-too-taxing fourth-round qualifier against Laois in 2013.

It is a measure of how he has transformed expectations that the disappointment in the county following that shock defeat to Down was so quickly parked, and that the draw which pretty much everyone else wanted to avoid has been embraced with quiet relish.

The flatness of the performance against Down inevitably lent itself to the conspiracy theory that their team just was not bothered about Ulster.

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Anyone with the vaguest knowledge of McGuinness will know that theory is not worth the beer mat it was written on.

What that defeat and such a subdued performance suggested is that getting back on firm ground after an elevated high has been pretty much a constant challenge for Donegal in the McGuinness years.

They have taken an Ulster winners’ hangover into the All-Ireland series more often than not: take last year’s opening round loss to Tyrone, the previous year’s defeat in Cork (albeit in the second round), and further back to his first term, the tight shaves against Kildare and Armagh in the 2011 and 2014 quarter-finals, where results could have flipped on a kick of the ball.

The exception? In 2012, there was no issue with blurred vision when they caught sight of Kerry to record their first and, to this point, only win over the Kingdom.

Much as they might have stressed otherwise in the immediate aftermath, the near-perfect pitch of their performance and the margin of victory over Kerry in the league decider gave them that Ulster final winning feeling before they even got to play in the Ulster championship.

McGuinness will hardly have needed to tell them that from here to where they want to be, getting down and getting real is non-negotiable.

There is another narrative doing the rounds that getting out of Ulster early will do them a favour on the basis they will be lighter raced, but that is a double-edged sword.

What team does not want to be exposed to high-end competition while still winning?

And what Ulster taketh, it also giveth back. Having played them earlier in the summer, both Armagh and Tyrone were taken out of their All-Ireland road last year, which went some way to facilitating their rather genteel passage to the final, although that may have been a questionable blessing.

As for taking the most daunting of challenges with a sense of calm and quiet confidence, the fact that there is a safety net of another chance has most certainly fed into that.

It was notable that one of the main observations stressed when the draw was made was how Donegal and Kerry would almost certainly not cross paths again unless they met in a repeat of last year’s final.

That is a thought that is not likely to cross either McGuinness’s or Jack O’Connor’s mind, as they will view the road ahead as a sniper’s haven, and will be keenly aware that the consequences of losing on Saturday will make it one far harder travelled.

Put it this way: the loser could be facing the possibility of travelling to Dr Hyde Park or Omagh, or maybe the Athletic Grounds or Celtic Park, if they come out the wrong side of the Round 2B draw, where they will be playing sudden-death ball.

Going down the losers route will see a team having to win three games in as many weeks to make it to the All-Ireland semi-finals, so the notion that defeat on Saturday will not diminish the chances of winning the All-Ireland is well wide of the mark.

Instead, Donegal’s sense of well-being is likely to be sourced in the conviction they will get a response from their no-show against Down.

They have reason to believe that. In 43 championship matches in charge, McGuinness has never lost back-to-back.

Of course, neither has he ever faced Kerry in Killarney, where they have lost just once in their last 46 Championship games.

Something has to give, then, but Donegal believe it will not be them.

If there is a time to get Kerry, this feels like it.

Kerry’s injury woes will ease and almost certainly some big names will be back this weekend – there have been positive soundings about Seán O’Shea and Joe O’Connor – but, even so, they are likely to be some way from full-strength.

Jack O’Connor indicated before the Munster final that the bulk of his players will be back by the second round, but given the lack of match time and fragile fitness of so many key players, not least Paudie Clifford, he will be aware of the perils of three games in as many weeks.

That makes this a must-win for him, too.

And that is not to mention the psychological damage of a second high-profile defeat to Donegal in as many months, given the manner and margin of that league final loss when Kerry somehow managed to be flattered when losing by 13 points.

What comfort O’Connor will have taken in his patched-up team beating Cork will have been washed away by the fact that Donegal will ask the questions which were well beyond Cork’s articulation.

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And that is why this is an education that Donegal and McGuinness will learn much from.

The legacy of the league final is that roles have been reversed.

Back at the end of March, the fascination was centred on how Donegal would heed the lessons from last year’s All-Ireland final, and they ticked just about every box.

They shut down Kerry’s short kick-out option that released the pressure valve in last July’s final, they beefed up their physical presence on the contested kick-outs, they pressed higher up the field, exploited their speed in one-on-one match-ups, negated David Clifford by both starving him of ball and by the astute decision to detail Caolan McColgan, and got off a staggering 31 shots from 32 possessions.

And for all the talk of Kerry’s depleted hand, they did all that with a team that did not start the likes of Finbarr Roarty, Cathal Moore, Oisin Gallen, Daire O Baoill, Shaun Patton and Ciaran Thompson, who is reported to be back on the training pitch.

However, if Michael Langan, man of the match in that league final and arguably right now the front-runner for Footballer of the Year, does not feature, it is a potentially game-changing loss.

It means Kerry will have to show something different here, with much focus on whether Shaun Murphy can fill the void off the kicking tee left by Shane Ryan’s injury, but also in terms of providing the movement to give their goalkeeper something to hit, because this game will ultimately be decided by which team gets their hand on the ball most.

There was some deluded comfort among Kerry supporters that McGuinness showed his hand in that league final, and that there would be a reckoning for that on a bigger stage.
They could not have envisioned it would come this soon and that their hand would be this weak.

Donegal may be a little lighter of pocket leaving Killarney, but they may well view it as value for money in the pursuit of what is priceless.