Joe Brolly: Synchronised goalies

After Galway had beaten Sligo in this year’s Connacht semi-final with a last-minute goal, Padraic Joyce was asked why his team had been so listless. He said, “It’s very hard to motivate these players to play on a Saturday evening.” The good news for Padraic is that Galway don’t have to play Donegal in Croke Park on Saturday evening. The bad news is that he will need to be at the top of his game against the country’s only elite Gaelic football manager.

Jimmy will not be needing a motivational coach. Or hypnotist. Or anyone else. He is everything rolled into one. Nothing is left to chance. No one is overlooked. Since his electrifying ambush of Derry (remember us?) in the first round at Celtic Park, Donegal have been under his spell. They come to games with an aura of invincibility, a sense that no matter what the opposition does it will not matter.

I was in Croke Park early last Sunday, even before the Donegal and Louth teams came out for their pre match stroll. Like everyone else, I am fascinated by Jimmy and I wanted to watch their routine. First, the cones guy came out, a young fellow in his twenties. He set out the cones. Then the posts. Then he stood at the posts for ages watching down the line of cones, like an engineer with his theodolite, before walking slowly along the line, moving the cones an inch or two to the left or right. Three times he did this, until he was satisfied. This was only for one drill. There were two others setting out other drills, equally meticulously.

When Jimmy took over Donegal for the first time, in 2011, he gave each player a set of rules. They were printed on an A6 laminated poster to post on your wall. “Take this home and this is what you live by” Jimmy told each player as he handed it to them. The ten commandments they were called. The first commandment was “No fouling inside the scoring zone.”

Kevin Cassidy still has his in the attic. I spoke to him over the phone on Saturday and he was chuckling at the memories. “In the first or second game that year, I gave away a free that was tapped over. At the video session on the Monday night, Jimmy stopped the video and turned to look at me. There were forty men in the room looking at me. There was total silence. Jimmy said, “What the **** were you doing?” I said something like ‘Jesus Jimmy the game was over’. He roared at me, his spit flecking over me, “You know the rules. So why the **** did you do that. Explain it to the group.” It was the last time I fouled inside the scoring zone.

Me: Was this a common occurrence?

Kevin: No. After a very short time, everyone knew their roles and knew that the rules had to be followed. Either that or you were gone. I remember one time Mark McHugh, who was our full time sweeper, was called out by him for being out of position. Jimmy slowed the video and went through it, then asked Mark to explain it. Mark had the cop on to know any explanation was pointless. He just said, “It won’t happen again.”

Me: The rules were so multi-purpose that they were no exceptions?

Kevin: Exactly. One of the other commandments was ‘No shooting outside the scoring zone’. We worked on this fanatically in training. In the All-Ireland quarter final against Kildare in 2011, I got carried away near the end and took a shot from way out. Afterwards Jimmy went mental.

He stuck his face into mine and screamed at me.

Me: Screamed?

Kevin: Screamed. I’m afraid of no man Joe, but that moment I was afraid.

As Kevin puts it, “Jimmy plans everything so precisely, that if you do not do what you are supposed to do, it is easy to call you out.

“And being called out by him isnot pleasant.”

This might explain why the young fellow setting out the cones was so careful.

At 12.25, the three Donegal goalkeepers came out and began their own warm up. They did everything in perfect unison, like synchronised swimmers. Watching it put me in mind of some weird novelty act at the Scor. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for the Donegal goalies.” Their routine took precisely fifteen minutes to perform. I could not take my eyes off them. By 12.45, there was nothing left for Jimmy to do but confiscate the squad’s mobile phones.

Then, out they came for a live performance of a match they have rehearsed thousands of times. Louth played well. Very well. But Donegal were relentless. Minute by minute, they did everything right. They were highly motivated. They sprinted and surged forward and handpassed and kickpassed with great accuracy. They shepherded forwards onto their weak foot and down cul de sacs. They did not take rests. Shining with that sense of mission Jimmy has imbued them with, they scored 1-23 and could have scored more if need be.

I keep thinking of what Niall O’Donnell said after the Ulster final a few months ago. Niall, who just last year looked a middling player on a middling team, was awarded Man Of The Match. In his interview, he said, matter of factly, “We knew we would win today. We don’t think anybody out there can beat us. If we do what we are supposed to, we believe we will win.”

I suspect Jimmy was planning an ambush of Dublin. I think he would have been much happier with them. He would have known Dublin have been struggling for motivation and would probably have taken Donegal for granted. This does not apply to Galway, who have better players than Donegal and are on a roll themselves. It will be a particular consolation to Padraig Joyce that the game is not on Saturday evening.