Jim McGuinness defended Kieran McGeeney’s “piggery” depiction of the kick-out battle under the new rules, saying the Armagh manager “probably had a point with his comments last week”.
The Donegal manager was speaking after his side’s 1-20 to 0-19 victory in the Athletic Grounds that put Donegal clear at the top of Division One with four wins from four.
“We had that conversation on the sideline at one stage during the game,” McGuinness said. “It’s happening and I think it’s a fair comment. It does be distilled down to that. We had a pod out here on the left-hand side and Ciarán Moore did brilliant work for us, Huey [McFadden] did brilliant work, Jason McGee did brilliant work, Michael Langan too, and that’s what won us the game. The end of the day, that’s what won us the game.
“Going back to Kieran’s comments last week, you know, was there any skill involved in that? He probably has a point. There’s definitely a lot of heart involved in it and there’s a lot of determination involved in it. But he does have a point in that regard. It becomes a game of chance and the ball’s going to bounce one way or another.
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“The counties that have big men ... we’re fortunate we have a couple of big men and that gives us a slight advantage. They’re able to get together in the one area and they’re able to get involved in that battle. And some countries don’t have those players available.”
As for McGeeney, he was in flying form afterwards, teasing the media about what a gift he is to the content world. He was happy enough with how his team played but despaired at the standard of finishing. Conscious of not going viral like he has over the last few weeks of the league, he defended his players’ decisions to keep shooting, just not their accuracy in doing so.
“We had four goal chances blocked against Galway, four again against Roscommon, so it’s not as if we’re not going for goals. It’s my fault because I gave yous the headlines. Your subeditor must be going ‘Get that f**ker McGeeney out there and we’ll get some papers sold’.
“It’s a case of another game where we had the chances, we’ve had the chances to win two or three games. So I’m very disappointed after four games, three of them we should have won. But that’s sport.”
