Jim McGuinness delighted that Donegal stuck to the process

​By Paul Keane

When Shane O'Donnell was interviewed pitchside after being named Man of the Match for Donegal in their win over Monaghan, he conceded that a 'few harsh words' had been spoken at half-time.

That didn't seem surprising given that Donegal were seven points behind at the interval and struggling to contain a rampant Monaghan.

Manager Jim McGuinness had a different take, however, on what went down at half-time in his dressing-room, maintaining that he as good as told his players to keep doing what they were doing.

As far as the manager was concerned, the half-time deficit didn't fully reflect Donegal's efforts, even if they did look 'tired', and he was confident they could turn it around in the second-half as they did.

"For the first 15 minutes, I would say we were really happy with the way we were defending them, in many respects," said McGuinness. "I would imagine from a Monaghan point of view, with the two-pointer they kicked just before the break, they were thinking, 'Right, this is it, we have the magic formula'.

"But we didn't change anything, to be honest, because we had the work done, we had the plan going into the game done.

"We just doubled down on that. We didn't change any personnel, we just trusted the fellas to get it right themselves. Then it's over to the players, it's a moment where you've got to say, 'Listen, we're in a hole here and only the players can get themselves out of that hole'.

"So very, very happy they responded the way they did, and very happy with the bench as well. That was very important as well, everyone that came on made a massive contribution."

McGuinness said that while he knew that Monaghan would push hard for two-point scores, it was still a considerable challenge to stop them flying over. Monaghan scored four two-pointers in the first-half, though just one in the second-half.

"Letting ourselves drift back into a seven-point deficit was a tough enough hole to be in but I would caveat that by saying you're playing against a team that are very, very hungry for twos," said the 2012 All-Ireland winning manager.

"Once we got control of that in the second-half, and they continued to look for the twos, an awful lot of balls were dropping short and stuff, it was a double edged sword then because you're not conceding twos and you're scoring at the other end.

"That's what we were trying to do from the first minutes but that wasn't the case."

It was Donegal's ninth game of the Championship campaign, compared to Monaghan's fifth.

"It's our ninth and a half game," said McGuinness, noting that the Ulster final went to extra-time. "We did look a bit tired at the start of the game but that's part and parcel of it."

McGuinness praised both goalscorer Michael Langan, who struck 1-3, and goalkeeper Shaun Patton who was more assured in the second period following a shaky first-half.

Monaghan's goal was scored by Micheal Bannigan when a Patton kick-out was intercepted and fed to the team captain.

"You were trying to thread the eye of the needle at that stage with the kick-outs, and we got caught with one, and we were punished for that," said McGuinness.

"There was much more variety in the second-half and also we trusted our bigger men to go and fetch. Hugh McFadden did that really well, Michael Langan did it well, Jason McGee when he came in, so all of that was a big plus for us."

Monaghan manager Gabriel Bannigan lamented their second-half fade out.

"The things that we were doing brilliantly in the first-half, we just weren't able to replicate them in the second-half," said Bannigan.

"There were handling errors, there were poor options taken. We were getting shots blocked down, we kicked more wides. We didn't seem to have the same hunger around the breaking ball. All of those things just went against us.

"We were trying to stem that tide and break the momentum that was with Donegal. We never managed to do that in the second-half."