'I don't think there's someone in Croke Park trying to take Donegal down'

The 42

6 days ago

FORMER TYRONE STAR Seán Cavanagh has questioned Donegal's approach to articulating their frustration over their hectic fixture schedule, and doesn't believe that they are being harshly treated by Croke Park.
Jim McGuinness has been vocal about this issue recently, and was fiercely critical of the decision to choose Roscommon's Dr. Hyde Park as the neutral venue for their All-Ireland round-robin game against Mayo earlier this month. He said 'it would only happen because it's us' after that one-point victory.
This week, Donegal GAA released a statement slamming the six-day turnaround between their All-Ireland preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final win over Louth, and their quarter-final clash with Monaghan this Saturday.
'I would wonder whether there's different messages going out externally as to what's maybe going out internally,' Cavanagh began when asked for his interpretation of Donegal's reaction to their grievances.
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Three-time All-Ireland winner Seán Cavanagh. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
'If you were to maybe draw up a master plan, you'd maybe want to have that little bit of external, 'the world is against us'. I think that's standard. Every team that's won anything has always used that at some point in time.'
'I don't think for one minute that there's someone in Croke Park trying to take Jim and Donegal down. So I certainly see it as just one of those things. I don't think the players need to be thinking too much about it.'
Tyrone's three-time All-Ireland winner also pointed to the importance of player welfare and understands Donegal's obligation to 'look after players.' The Ulster champions are the only team in the final eight with a six-day break before their quarter-final. But Cavanagh added that he never felt he could criticise fixtures during his playing days, and suspects that McGuinness could be communicating the wrong message to his panel.
'You can see the frustration that's there from him. It's obviously been in his head for the last number of weeks.
'I'm not totally sure it's the right thing to do. He'll be better at psychology than I would be, but from a coach's perspective, I would think it's not a great thing to be telling your players that they're tired.
'I remember whenever we were in those five or six weekends in a row, the way Mickey Harte would have been dressing [it] up to us would have been, 'think of all the great competitive games we're getting here, how much sharper we are.'
'And when you look at it in the cold light of day, Donegal losing to Tyrone in Ballybofey knocked them back. And they lost that gap, that extra week of rest that we've all spoken about is so valuable this time of year.
'But as a player, I always felt we didn't really have the entitlement to sort of change when the fixtures were there.'
Looking at the other teams still left in the championship, Cavanagh feels his own native Tyrone has not performed yet to their capabilities but that a crunch match against old rivals Dublin could be the spark that brings their season to life.
'I think we're back heading in the right direction. Saturday night presents itself as a really big opportunity to lay down a marker that we're heading back in the right direction.'
He also feels Kerry are 'vulnerable' due to their injury concerns, as well as their reliance on David Clifford who hit 3-7 in their preliminary quarter-final win over Cavan. Barry-Dan O'Sullivan has been ruled out of the rest of the season with a knee injury, while Paul Geaney, Tony Brosnan and Diarmuid O'Connor are among those on the treatment table at the moment.
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He feels their quarter-final opponents — and defending All-Ireland champions — Armagh are the team to beat in this year's championship.
'They've had their injury concerns. They're very vulnerable. And they're coming up against a team that has probably 25 players that could play on Sunday.
'I think Armagh have brought a consistency in the standards that certainly I wasn't expecting. I always felt the years after we'd won All-Ireland we started to run out of gas a little bit. And, even psychologically, we started to show signs of tiredness. Armagh haven't shown anything like that because they're able to drop in five or six guys that are freshening the team up.'
Seán Cavanagh was speaking ahead of the 2025 Electric Ireland GAA All-Ireland Minor Championship Finals.