The only thing that will beat us is the clock.
Donegal are a lot of things.
Talented. They always have been.
Frustrating. If you’re from anywhere outside of their borders.
Wrongly convicted. They seem to be on permanent trial for murder in the first degree of Gaelic Football.
Revolutionary. They didn’t change the game, but they changed the way everyone looked at the game.
In the aftermath of what could possibly go down as the performance of a generation when the men from the hills ambushed the impenetrable Dublin in the heart of the capital city, Jim McGuinness said something remarkable.
“I’m a firm believer in the idea that you can win any game of football on any given day.”
With that, you had a brief glimpse into the psyche of a Donegal man.
A mindset that doesn’t accept second best. One that goes to the ends of the earth to ensure preparation is perfect. A people defiant, proud but, more importantly, relentless.
Donegal and Jim McGuinness might well have set a blueprint to a system that has been plagiarised inaccurately ever since but what they really did was level the scales. They made it okay to believe again. They found another way of winning.
But they didn’t do it by placing bodies in a certain area of a field and kicking back with their feet up to watch the results. They did it with intelligence. They did it by using what they had at their disposal. And they did it with sheer, uncompromising, hard, honest work.
And, one by one, they have been followed by would-be dreamers.
Four and a half seasons on, Donegal are readying for their fifth Ulster final in as many campaigns.
They already have three provincial titles under their belts having waited 17 years beforehand to bridge the gap. They’ve come from relative obscurity to complete dominance.
Donegal have come from an inconsistent waste of talent to the most reliable, most feared, most unrelenting machine that you could set your clock to.
Donegal is now Donegal. Three syllables that command immediate attention and respect.
And Rory Gallagher is taking them further still.
He hasn’t yet brought back silverware, he’s still living somewhat under the shadow of McGuinness but, with tactical versatility, with a conscious effort to open teams up and put them away early doors, Donegal have a whole new dimension. They have a whole new element of unpredictability to their game and, still, they have seen out three matches when it was necessary to batten down the hatches.
Colm McFadden is reborn. Gallagher has released him from the chains of a man-on-man-on-sweeper inside line and allowed him to go find his own space, to go get his hands on the ball and he is reaping the rewards.
Neil Gallagher is evergreen and he’s drifitng into full forward for parts of games so he’s saving his energy for later in the contest and scaring the living daylights out of full backs in the process.
Michael Murphy is on another planet. We needn’t go into it.
Their half back line – or their running backs – are that good that Anthony bloody Thompson isn’t nailed down to start anymore. The McHughs, Lacey, McGlynn, these guys are the most potent defenders in the game. Defenders. Potent.
Martin McElhinney is destroying teams and no-one has barely given him a column inch.
Now, Monaghan lie in the wings. Malachy O’Rourke’s men will give Gallagher’s side their biggest test of the season but when you go to the well so many times like the Donegal players seem to do, just to get a drop of water, you go into these encounters with a certain degree of certainty.
Whatever is thrown at them, whatever unfolds, the yellow and green jerseys will keep churning out their patterns unaffected. They’ll be organised, disciplined and they’ll throw their plays up top from a playbook that has undoubtedly gotten thicker of late.
If they’re five points up, six points down, they won’t waver, they won’t panic. They’ll persist with their system and they’ll continue their work because that’s what has gotten them here in the first place.
Work.
And, through any circumstance, that effort is the only thing the Donegal men are in control of. So they’ll keep working for 70 minutes and know that, when all is said and done, the only thing that will beat them is the clock.
It won’t be a lack of effort. And it certainly won’t be a lack of heart.
Say what you want about Donegal but don’t ignore what they have done for the sport. Don’t ignore that they have reignited the idea that anything is possible. If you want it enough.
Donegal is the before, during and after shot of their very own underdog movie. Except, now, they have transformed themselves into a beast.
This article was brought to you by For Goodness Shakes. Donegal GAA are using a range of For Goodness Shakes recovery and protein products for their senior squad.
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