Heading into last weekend's clash between Derry and Donegal, quite a few GAA fans were interested to see what Jim McGuinness had up his sleeve for the fixture.
The 51-year old had a habit of pulling a rabbit out of a hat during his first spell in charge of the county, especially against the best teams in the country. Was he going to repeat a similar trick in his first championship game since his return to the role?
It quickly became apparent that he was.
The way that Donegal exploited Derry's roaming goalkeeper was a sight to behold, repeatedly scoring into an empty net en route to a 4-11 to 0-17 victory. It has resulted in plenty of praise for McGuinness, as well as some questions about his counterpart on the opposite side.
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Joe Brolly baffled by Mickey Harte approach in Derry vs Donegal
Mickey Harte has won plenty of plaudits for his achievements with Derry so far this season, although his lack of reaction to the way in which his team was exploited by Donegal has resulted in some criticism in recent days.
Writing in the Irish Independent, Joe Brolly said that this result came down to Jim McGuinness thoroughly out-coaching Harte, who failed to respond to what was a clear issue with the use of his goalkeeper.
This was a predictable managerial catastrophe. Jimmy McGuinness is not a genius, but he is logical and clear-minded...
He needed something that could create goals, and more than one of them. Our ’keeper-midfielder was the obvious solution to his problem...
All it would have taken was a simple half-time instruction (from Harte) to the ’keeper: Stay on your line. And an instructions to the half-backs to drop back on the Donegal kick-out.
But what was blatantly obvious to the 14,000 people in attendance and the hundreds of thousands watching at home was not obvious to the two Tyrone men...
Jimmy mustn’t have believed his luck, when instead of sending the ’keeper back to do his job, Mickey started taking off the corner-forwards. First one, then the other.
You can read the article in full here.
Joe Brolly was initially hesitant about the decision to appoint Mickey Harte as Derry manager, and while he was impressed with their performance in the league, he was clearly taken aback by the way Donegal took them apart last weekend.
He will be hoping that an extended break before the All-Ireland series will see the team cut out this weakness from their game.
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