It was superhumans against humans at Croke Park – the Kingdom were more or less perfect and Donegal had no Plan B
Seánie O’Shea lifting the Sam Maguire Cup. Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Arriving into Croke Park for the game, the talk was all about the pitch being mowed in a bewildering array of diamonds and crosses. “Jimmy’s been here. It’s the Donegal game plan,” said the glamorous brunette. After 15 minutes of the first half, I said to her, “Donegal have a game plan?”
Jimmy’s audacious experiment to turn a squad of ordinary enough footballers into All-Ireland champions has failed. His masterplan depended on a system that no other team had been able to compete with, a system that disguised the individual shortcomings of his players. Kerry hacked it, planting a virus in it.