HUGH McFadden has compared the aftermath of last year’s All-Ireland final to a “grieving process”.
Until such a day as it becomes the ghost of summer present, last year’s defeat by Kerry will remain Donegal’s ghost of summer past.
All that went before it and even a lot of what went during that game was washed into the mud by the result.
That McFadden didn’t start the game came as a huge surprise at the time.
Despite having been good all year and excellent in the semi-final win over Meath, he was taken out of the starting team in place of Caolan McGonagle, who was in to play as what Jim McGuinness described as the “second sweeper” role.
By the time he was introduced at the interval, so much of the damage had been done.
McFadden talks about “the initial mourning of it…I don’t know if you ever get over it. I think Michael [Murphy] gave that answer one day.”
He says that the team haven’t watched the final back as a group, but that he sat through it himself across several sittings with his father Hughie over the winter.
“You just kind of trust your management team that they’ve came away and watched it and they’ve come back from the learnings that they want us to take from it.
“I watched it back personally – it makes for raw viewing.
“You don’t get through it all in one sitting either, if that makes sense.
“A few awkward conversations across the sofa with your father when you’re trying to watch it! That’s kind of the grieving process of it.”
Why watch it?
“I would say to answer a few questions,” replies the Killybegs man.
“You play a game and you have thoughts of what happened and sometimes you watch back a game and you get a different perspective, not necessarily a better perspective.
“Sometimes you’re chatting to a teammate or somebody after a game and you’re saying X, Y and Z went well in the heat of battle, an emotional view.
“Then you watch it back that’s not exactly the way it went – you probably get a second take on it if that makes sense.”
The more you study that final, the smaller the margin between the performances of the two teams becomes.
But the scoreline never changes.
“We were comprehensively beaten in the All-Ireland final – I don’t think there’s any way of dressing that up.
“There’s definitely things that were unfortunate on the day. We lost two very good players [Ciaran Thompson and Ryan McHugh].
“We know now looking back that Paddy was obviously carrying bumps and bruises going into the game as well – a fully fit Paddy McBrearty puts that ball over the bar and it definitely narrows the game.
“We just have to learn from it as a group of players that we didn’t show up and put our best foot forward in the All-Ireland final. That poses a lot of hard questions personally and then as a group as to why it didn’t work out.
“You just have to improve from that. I know that sounds very simplistic but you just have to go away and see what were our shortcomings and how we can improve from that.
“We think we’ve made some strides but the acid test is only starting now and everybody’s very well aware of that.”
He is speaking at the Ulster Championship launch the day after Donegal landed a slap back on Kerry with a big victory in the Division One league final.
The Achilles bothered him a bit through the club season with Killybegs. He went and got it right.
“Coming out of the club Championship, it is just trying to plan your body as soon as possible to get a clear run at pre-season.
“That’s two things that didn’t happen for me in the last two years – there’s been one or two niggles that interrupted that pre-season training. I’m a player that has to get all the training done.
“You need to get base of work before Christmas to hit the ground running. I didn’t do much training before Christmas in 2024 and a wee bit in 2025.”
At this stage of his career, what does heavy conditioning look like? Is it on-field or off-feet?
“Maybe throughout the club season I would probably do more off-feet conditioning because of the struggle to train between club games if you’re not fit to actually get on the park.
“Ideally you’re doing as much on the grass as possible because there’s nothing as good as getting into legs.
“You come up with all these fancy plans and just being able to take part in football training every night it’s on, you know that might not seem like a big thing, but when you’re in and out, or you’re kind of going to the physio ‘can I do all this tonight or can I not do all this?’
“When you just get into the routine of not thinking about going to training and you’re just going to football training, you don’t realise, that’s kind of a privilege to be able to do until you’re not able to do it.”
McFadden has played every minute of Donegal’s eight league games this year.
It’s up on 13 years now since he caught the eye rampaging through the place at full-forward as the club reached a county final.
His father Hughie had done goals for Killybegs in their 1988 championship success but was more aligned to soccer during his playing days, a path that young Hugh looked on course to follow until Jim McGuinness called him in at the end of that 2013 campaign.
Hughie senior coached him up through the grades and one skillset that he has brought to the Donegal team, whether it be from the soccer background, is his communication.
From the terraces, it is very often McFadden you will hear running the game on the field.
“We were very lucky growing up with a few great coaches. It helps too when you’re probably opinionated and you’re not afraid to shout out a few instructions.
“Just trying to help your team as best as possible and if you think you’re seeing something that can help someone else, why wouldn’t you do it?
“But then I’ve said plenty of things on the field too and you get it wrong, and you get a wee bit of rap in an ear that you said something and you made the wrong call too.
“That’s part of it. I’d a lot of good coaches encouraging you when you’re younger. My father managed all the teams growing up too and it’s one of the things that rubs off.”