Donegal have cause - if not a case - to defy gauntlet as Monaghan fixture adds insult to injury

Irish Examiner

5 days ago

In the opinion of Donegal, the Central Competitions Controls Committee's (CCCC) decision to arrange their All-Ireland SFC quarter-final against Monaghan on Saturday has added insult to injury.
Following on from arranging their neutral final round game against Mayo for King & Moffatt Hyde Park, that they are the only preliminary quarter-final winners with a six-day turnaround will underline manager Jim McGuinness's claim that these things "only happen" to Donegal "because it's us.'
McGuinness had some valid points about the round game being arranged for Roscommon town but his argument was weakened by claims that other counties had 'a fair shake'. Kerry having to go to Tullamore and Galway travelling to Breffni for their neutral matches against Meath and Armagh made Swiss cheese of that claim.
Nevertheless, coming so soon after the sense of grievance the six-day turnaround between the Louth and Monaghan games, a scheduling that the CCCC has strived to avoid for several years, will have only fortified the siege mentality in Donegal.
McGuinness would likely have signed off on the statement that the Donegal County Board released late on Monday night about the Monaghan fixture. 'No other county has played as many matches as Donegal in this year's championship,' it read.
'To compound the physical and mental demands, those eight games have been played within an 11-week window. Match number nine comes this Saturday, less than 12 weeks after playing Derry in the Ulster Championship Preliminary round on April 6.
"On that basis, we thought it wholly reasonable and fully justified to seek an extra day recovery time for our players this weekend. Coiste Chontae Dhun na nGall concludes that it is most regrettable, and very disappointing, that our request has been turned down. We feel the welfare of our players was not adequately considered in the decision making process."
Donegal are the only preliminary quarter-final winners with a six-day turnaround. File picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Some other facts have to be pointed out here. Donegal's schedule obviously wouldn't be so taxing, i.e. a game less, were it not for the fact that they didn't top the group and lost their home game against Tyrone last month.
As the Ulster championship is now seeded to avoid the same team(s) playing in the preliminary round of the competition and thus facing four games to reach the provincial final, their chances of being drawn in the first hurdle for the first time since 2021 had been greater.
In the last two years of this format, three of the four preliminary All-Ireland quarter-finals were played on a Saturday and each time all four counties had at least seven-day gaps to their quarter-finals. However, this year the preliminary games were evenly split across their weekend thus precipitating to this disagreement between Donegal and the CCCC.
As for the horse-trading that went on to finalise this weekend's programme of quarter-finals, Galway's third consecutive 'away' trip in Newry last Sunday as opposed to Donegal playing at home would have been taken into consideration.
As would the broadcasters's requests. Armagh v Kerry had been the top preference of RTÉ, who were showing the two Sunday games, but ultimately the decision lay with the CCCC.
Had the two major quarter-finals – Armagh v Kerry and Tyrone v Dublin – been staged on Saturday and therefore streamed on GAA+, there would have been uproar. Although, could there have been some flexibility shown to allow both RTÉ and the GAA's own platform cover a quarter-final on each day?
After McGuinness's Dr Hyde Park remarks, Donegal might feel they poked the bear when GAA president Jarlath Burns twice defended the CCCC in the wake of them, both at last Tuesday's All-Ireland SFC launch and again in his match programme notes for the preliminary quarter-finals this past weekend.
Could there have been some flexibility shown to allow both RTÉ and GAA+ to cover a quarter-final on each day? File picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
But Donegal can't say the CCCC has done nothing for them. In January, the body postponed their opening Division 1 fixture against Kerry in Killarney due to snow in Donegal and in the interests of safety. That was in spite of the county's hurlers's game going ahead the same day in Trim and their ladies footballers taking on Clare the following day in Doonbeg. The hurlers had travelled Friday.
That decision upset some in Kerry especially as word had spread around Donegal on the day before the game that it had been called off. So strong was the speculation that Donegal County Board even released a statement claiming such reports were untrue only for the CCCC to later confirm it had been called off 'due to weather conditions preventing Donegal from travelling'.
At the same time, that decision meant both they and Kerry had to play five of their seven rounds over five consecutive weekends. That was a brutal schedule similar enough to what Donegal are enduring right now - Saturday will be their ninth championship game in 83 days.
It's a programme that would test even the strongest of panels but then Donegal's preparations have extensive to say the least. In December, they took the unprecedented step of having a warm weather training camp in the United Arab Emirates having partaken in a similar venture in The Canaries 12 months previously.
Donegal mightn't so far as to admit like Waterford senior hurling manager Peter Queally that they were training in October but they had been holding 'trials'. Claims now about the GAA 'not being adequately considered' will be viewed dimly in some quarters.
The truth is Donegal are running a gauntlet but in doing so they have a cause to defy it.