Fomer Mayo boss offers defence of Jim McGuinness after Kerry incident

A fair assessment

Donegal boss Jim McGuinness looks set for a suspension after getting involved with the Kingdom's Diarmuid O'Connor, with many pointing to Dublin manager Ger Brennan's 12-week suspension after a similar incident, as a possible indicator for a ban.

However, when this question was posed to McGuinness by Off The Ball's Tommy Rooney, he did not take to kindly to it.

Rooney: "We saw Ger Brennan getting a ban for being involved... are you worried about a ban."

McGuinness: "Are you trying to get me banned?"

Rooney: "Well it's televised it's on GAA+, it's on air."

McGuinness: "So you're flying that kite there?"

Rooney: "No it's a pretty straight forward question."

McGuinness: "No it's not really, not at all."

Rooney: "It would be hard not to talk about it"

McGuinness: "Well you're not talking about the incident, you're finger pointing me out of the 50 people is that what you're saying."

Rooney: "There's a very clear rule that Ger Brennan got banned for."

McGuinness: "Well that's good enough you've done your job."

While the former Mayo manager was clear in his view that McGuinness was wrong, he wrote: "The incident happened in Donegal’s side of the field. They already had one player lying on the ground as a result of the Clifford collision and then Ryan McHugh had become isolated with two Kerry guys at him.

"If Ryan comes away from that incident unmarked, I don’t think Jim gets involved. But when he sees blood pouring from the side of his player’s face, that changes everything.

"For a game that is built around brotherhood and that tribal aspect, there is always going to be an emotional element involved. If we don’t want emotion, if we want robotic protagonists, then we’d have a very beige spectacle."