ON GAELIC GAMES:Donegal, without an All-Ireland under-age medal on the team, were ensemble acting as opposed to a system built around stars, writes SEAN MORAN

MAYBE IT was because the final worked out as expected with Donegal’s much-analysed system proving too much for yet another opponent that the momentousness of the season was to an extent overlooked. That the champions bridged a 20-year gap going back to their previous success was one of the most remarked-on aspects of the final, both in its contrast with Mayo’s unfortunate wait of 61 – now at least 62 – years and its affirmation that a new force in the game has been officially recognised.

It’s not however by recent standards an unusual breakthrough in itself; only last year Dublin won the All-Ireland for the first time in 16 years and in 2010 Cork were taking Sam Maguire home also after a 20-year interval.

What was truly significant about Donegal’s success was twofold: that they were the longest-odds champions in decades having started the season at what now appears as a daft 20 to 1 and that they did it with a team of players without under-age All-Irelands and most of whom had made no real impact on the championship until last year.

It’s hard to work out why they were such long odds but the governing sentiment was that they needed an attacking game to go with the hermetically-sealed defence. Yet manager Jim McGuinness had given notice that the much reviled defeat by Dublin wasn’t so much the lack of a Plan B as an imperfectly executed Plan A.

Over the two years the transformation was reminiscent of Dublin’s in 1974, driven as it was by a charismatic former player with a plan.

Ramping up physical fitness is one of the most tried-and-trusted methods of improving teams. It obviously enhances their ability to execute skills for longer and in Donegal’s case prepares them for a demanding system of play but also entails an element of mind subjugation that bonds teams by creating a community of suffering – not that ambitious players necessarily see the work in those terms.

The success was also one of the most striking triumphs of the collective – ensemble acting as opposed to a system built around stars. We knew this for the last year. In a way this was the message of the Kevin Cassidy controversy, which raised its unhappy head in Sunday’s aftermath.

My own view at the time was that this was a hostage to fortune. Cutting loose a current All Star and leadership figure in such a public fashion was fine in the depths of winter but come summer and the hot (hah!) entanglements of championship in which the margins can be so fine, would that absence prove costly or raise the flag on a blame game?

McGuinness’s vindication is complicated by Cassidy’s claim that he declined an invitation to return in the spring but the central fact remains: he took a stand that might have proved dangerous but instead it merely emphasised how important loyalty to the communal was in the world he was building.

It would be neat to say that this understanding must have sustained the team in adversity but when exactly did that occur?

Even the closest of championship matches started cagily, began to swing Donegal’s way in the second quarter and continued to do so in the second half with occasional lapses when the match was effectively won. I can’t remember a moment – even during Sunday, their least structured display – where the threat of disaster loomed even allowing for Paul Durcan’s blocking of Tyrone’s late goal assault.

What counted in matches – and this requires mental fortitude of a high order – was the ability to focus on the plan and execute it despite the opposition’s familiarity with it. To quote Clint Eastwood in Coogan’s Bluff: “ . . . you won’t believe what happens next even when it’s happening to you” – which just about summed up Cork in the semi-final.

You could maybe include Mayo in the final. There was a rumour that word of Michael Murphy’s likely deployment on the edge of the square had reached Castlebar last week. Whether that’s what happened or not isn’t really relevant because the match-up for which the Mayo management got most stick was Kevin Keane’s deployment on Murphy.

As everyone knew by Sunday, Ger Cafferkey, who had done such a good job on Bernard Brogan in the semi-final, had suffered at Murphy’s hands in the league so manager James Horan was aware of the possibility. The solution backfired – and not just in hindsight, as Martin Carney on RTÉ flagged his concern little more than seconds before the first goal.

But look at what happened and ask yourself how would Donegal have handled a similar attack? Firstly Murphy, in another and at this stage well-known example of prioritising the collective, is frequently not used as a strike forward. The trade-off benefit of this arrangement in McGuinness’s mind must be substantial because the Donegal captain is a phenomenal attacker.

So there he is in the third minute standing with only his marker for company in an acre of space. Karl Lacey’s run down the right wing is so unimpeded that he is able almost like a golfer to pick his shot into Murphy. The rest was just logical progression.

Donegal wouldn’t have allowed the break to proceed so smoothly and would have impeded the kick. At the other end it’s impossible to imagine an attacker of Murphy’s quality being isolated like that without a hovering swarm getting ready to intervene. This was crucial. It settled Donegal, put Mayo on the back foot immediately and reawakened the malign spirits of past finals, which they did well to exorcise to the extent they did. This all meant when Donegal went through their existential angst in the second quarter they’d already built an impressive buffer zone.

Paradoxically for a team with a no-stars policy, Donegal have produced such excellence in a wide variety of positions that they could plausibly threaten the All Star record for county representation, which stands at nine (Dublin in 1977 and Kerry four years later).

It’s a fair tally of achievement for the second instalment of a five-year plan.