Basic errors and decision-making cost Donegal

BBC News

2 days ago

Jim McGuinness said he had "no qualms" about Donegal's All-Ireland defeat by Kerry as he admitted his team made too many "basic errors" against a dominant opponent.Billed as a coin-flip decider between the two best teams around, Kerry proved far too strong for the back-to-back Ulster champions and ran out comfortable 1-26 to 0-19 winners. Kerry showed ferocious intent from the outset and led by seven points at the break, with McGuinness admitting his players struggled to match the Munster side's early intensity."Early doors in the game both teams were going at it on the scoreboard but Kerry were really laying down markers early in the game and dominated long parts of the game," McGuinness told BBC Sport NI. "We got it back at certain times to situations where you felt we had a bit of momentum, but ultimately we couldn't get to that two or three points (gap) where the game could really become interesting. "Hats off to Kerry, we're very disappointed for our players and for our supporters. It's a tough one to take."
Going into the game, Kerry forwards David Clifford and Seanie O'Shea led the two-point scoring charts with 11 apiece and their accurate shots from outside of the arc again proved key for Jack O'Connor's side.Clifford raised three orange flags from play - including one with the last kick of the first half - while O'Shea scored a two-point free in the second half. "They definitely seemed to go after the twos today but David Clifford is an exceptional player," added McGuinness."We had a lot of work done on David and how we could close him down but the reality is some of the twos he kicked today were exceptional."We have no qualms. Sometimes in life, you have to take your medicine and this is one of those times."
McGuinness was also uninterested in putting his side's performance down to the impact of a gruelling season which saw them play 11 championship games in 16 weeks. Instead, he insisted that his team's mistakes and uncharacteristic decision-making paved the way for a Kerry victory. "We had two weeks to come into the game," he said."We'd been able to bring them down [after the semi-final] and were able to bring them back up. They were fresh. We know from our own metrics when they're fresh and they were fresh, they were ready to play the game. "The game was very intensive early on and we struggled with elements of that and that cost us at times. "But look, we made too many mistakes, too many basic errors and made decisions that we normally never make so these are all the things we've to go away and reflect upon for another day."
Finally, McGuinness expressed disappointment in the lack of scorers throughout the Donegal team on the day. They had 12 different scorers in the semi-final win over Meath, but only six against the Kingdom with Michael Murphy hitting 0-8. While Kerry had seven different scorers, they had a goal and a series of two-pointers."Michael is Michael and he will carry that attention [from opponents] and he's carried that attention all throughout his career."That's why it's so important to have your 10, 11 or 12 scorers. That's why it's so important to have that spread of scorers because any day like that can happen and pop up and it didn't happen for us today."But they've given it their absolute all from the beginning of the year. They're a very, very good group to work with. Very dedicated, very focused on what they want to do. "Today's not a good day for us and it's not a good day in terms of what we wanted to achieve."