Donegal GAA Discussion Thread

We were going better than I expected.

But that's it now.

The missed penalty and then the kick. The frustration evident.

Take Murphy out of this team and it's very average. This was coming all year. End of Bonners reign. Maybe we'll see the team learning to kick the ball forward and to tackle. Tyrone aren't great and should have beaten us out the gate. They have better panel. Anyone describing Donegal as physical are deluded.

Disappointing but not entirely surprising. Tyrone better squad but I don't think they will be winning an All Ireland. Looking to the future I'm not sure who the candidates to replace Bonner would be.

Tyrone deserving winners today. Always a good battle. A below par performance, one of many in recent times which is frustrating when aware of the abundance of quality footballers in the county. I hope we have new management for next year, and that Eoin McHugh has enough awareness to never represent Donegal at this level again. Many poor performances. The whole team was poor. Thought Langan, McFadden-Ferry and Eoghan Ban did alright. Hughie McFadden was good but he needs to get fit enough to last a whole match. Great to have football back, looking forward to next year!

#bonnerout

Agreed the penalty miss changed the game, could have gone 5 up to soon losing/man down. Although I do think the one on langan was a free/not a penalty.

Ban Gallagher and Paul Brennan's direct running went a long way to keeping us ticking over.

Agree with baby builder above, was it Spillane said we were physical at half time? It's definitely a shortcoming although we did improve this year.

Defence has always been a weakness under Bonner and it's the basis to win trophies. Can't say I've the faith in him to get us back into the all Ireland fight, we have fallen short each year when the intensity really came on, although not although sure it's his fault/the players are there defensively either. Does feel the game was won on the line today though.

Dunno if McGee has another year in him, if that is his last involvement certainly sad that it will have ended up limping off early. Fantastic servant

Probably Neil’s last game too.

Out in the car today listening to the match updates, we hear 'Neil McGee has been taken off with a hip injury'.

Like a flash my missus goes 'well, at least Neil McHip wasn't taken off with a gee injury'.

That was where I thought McQuillan chickened out. It was clearly a foul and no way he didn`t see it, but having given a black card and a penalty for the same, he really could not just a free without questions a to what was different, so he just ignored it.

I don`t know if the defensive players are there or not, but at least we could coach what we have on the tackle. Michael included, as practically all his yellow cards have been due to clumsy tackles. A bit of conditioning would do no harm either for quite a few of that squad. Ryan is a fine footballer, but he is a liability at wing back. Even Derry were targeting his wing when attacking and Tyrone did the same today. I have been a critic of Paul Brennan in the past, but he did keep us in it along with Ban Gallagher. Still do not rate him at centre back though.

Hopefully Neil McGee will give it another year. A real warrior and a great servant that owes nothing to anybody

McBrearty not at the races at all - coughs up a lot of possession when he does get on the ball.

Hasnt been a good year for him

It was a good 2nd half performance in the circumstances. But it felt like we were being kept at arm's length. Langan missing the free and Paddy dropping another short were killer blows. Anyway, the game was lost in the 1st half really, when the penalty was missed and then Michael saw red. They had managed to stay in touch with a deep bench to call on. I was thinking McKenna might have slipped back a bit but he made a huge difference when he came on and it's ominous for the years ahead.

I'm certainly in the camp that we have regressed since 2019 and a fresh face might be needed. Declan Bonner has been a great Donegal man as a player, a senior manager, underage manager and senior manager again when we desperately needed someone to turn around what we had become under Jim McGuinness' successor. So I'll be slow to get behind any 'Bonner Out' calls. COVID and the fact that we managed to stay in Division 1 while putting up a decent performance yesterday might earn him another year. But honestly, it feels like we need to start the overhaul now.

It's up to himself, but I think Neil McGee should call it a day.

One of those days where anything that could go wrong for us did.

Once Murphy walked there was no way we could have gotten anything out of that game and especially not in that heat.

Away from the obvious sending off, the critical moments both happened during the Tyrone Black Cards. The penalty miss - christ. That would have put us 5 up and a man up coming into half time and in a very strong position. The way Tyrone had been playing I don't think they'd have been able to catch us at that stage (even with their bench) as we could manage the game better and have more energy. As it ended up I think they ended up drawing level and then the sending off happened.

We did really well to stay in the game as long as we did but the Langan missed free sealed the deal. They'd just gone down to 14 and that was an easy chance (for him) which would have made it a 1 point game and could have swung the momentum. Our race was run at that stage and Tyrone had more legs than us but it would have made it nervy for them.

Would have no question marks over the lads character / bottle. To make a game of it for as long as they did in those conditions was really brave of them. We all remember Donegal teams in the past that would have just collapsed but these lads do have a bit of fight in them - not in the gritty sense but they will keep trying to play ball.

Some quick fire thoughts:

-Eoghan Ban is wasted man marking. He's not particularly good at it and the difference he made when he pushed further up yesterday was huge. He needs to be played at wing back.

-Paddy McBrearty is not as fit he needs to be.

-We cannot go toe to toe with any half decent forward line with the defenders we have. Some of the Tyrone scores were absolutely pathetic from a defensive point of view. Strolling into our defensive zone with zero pressure and getting shots away easily. Two issues with this 1- man markers not up to it. 2- defensive structure not up to it. At one stage Mattie Donnelly was heading at out goal with Niall O'Donnell for company. This can't happen.

-Langan, O'Donnell, Mogan, McGonagle are all firmly established now and really important players. They've had a good year.

-I appreciate that there will be groundswell for Bonner to go but would be a bit concerned about the potential candidates to step into the void. SP!? Duffy!? McGuinness is a non-starter.

Trying to be positive, we've had a very disruptive 2 years and we still do have a good core group of players. It doesn't feel anywhere near like it did in 2017 and the final days of Rory Gallagher. The extended break (and hopefully a 'normal' lead in to a regular 2022) should stand to us. Derry Armagh and Monaghan have all progressed this year and look to have serious hunger. Tyrone and ourselves have fallen back into the pack a bit. If we come back with a full deck and address some of the glaring issues defensively next season we can still compete with those other 4 teams.

Now if we can just get last year's club championship final played off that would be great. Be nice for someone to have the trophy for a week before handing it back.

Great win for the minors tonight. An impressive performance. Turned over a lot of ball. A lot of big, but agile and pacey players. Great going forward and not afraid to zero in on goal. They’ll give any of the quarter finalists a good game Friday week.

We're down to play Monaghan in Clones next Wednesday.

Finally watched the game again from last Sunday. As said above, everything that could have went wrong for us went wrong.

But why no Oisin Gallen when we were chasing the game? Bringing McLean on at that time didn’t make sense.

We need to get Aaron Doherty into the panel if he’s interested. A better player, in my opinion, than Niall O’Donnell. Niall did ok this year but I think Doherty is better.

Congrats to Naomh Conaill, absolutely steamrolled the division. But perhaps that isn’t a good sign for the quality of club football in the county at the minute.

I think there’s room for improvement all over the field.