Donegal captain Patrick McBrearty admits that he didn’t know what to expect when himself and a number of Donegal players doorstepped Jim McGuinness in 2023 but is thankful the Glenties man made the decision to return to the setup, writes Matthew Wilson.

Donegal GAA was at its lowest place in quite a while in 2023. On the field, the side were relegated from Division 1 before exiting the championship at the preliminary quarter-final stage following a home defeat to Ulster rivals Tyrone.

As well as this, a couple of off-field matters also tainted the attractiveness of the role as Donegal senior football manager at the time.

McBrearty, accompanied by two other senior players, arrived at the door of Jim McGuinness’ house in Creeslough in the aftermath of the championship defeat to Tyrone to see if he’d return to manage the side for a second term.

The Naomh Conaill clubman didn’t say no on that first night in Creeslough and as time passed and talks progressed he decided to return to the fold, much to Donegal’s delight.

“We didn’t really know what to expect to be honest,” said Patrick. “We knew Jim was either going to welcome us with two arms or there was going to be another response. When you door-step someone, if it was me, I probably would have told him to clear.

“We hadn’t seen each other in a long time and had a good chat about things. Obviously where Donegal football was at and stuff, but he never said no basically. Which kept the thing alive.

“Obviously if he said no, that would have been fine. It wasn’t just one conversation, there were a few conversations obviously and we kept the pressure on.

“Thankfully he did come back, because God knows where the whole thing would be at the minute if he didn’t decide to come back.”

Donegal’s victory over Mayo back at the start of June was a big moment for the group according to the Kilcar man.

The Ulster champions travelled to Dr Hyde Park to face Mayo, a venue the Connacht men were unbeaten at since 2001.

Donegal were without a victory over Mayo in championship football since their triumph in the All-Ireland decider in 2012 having lost out to the West of Ireland side in 2013, 2015 and 2019.

However, as the clock struck 70 minutes in Roscommon, Ciaran Moore stepped up to kick a superb, courageous score in the last play of the contest to end this barren run.

McBrearty felt it showed the ruthlessness of the team and was a significant victory for the group, overcoming one of Ireland’s top sides.

“It was a big moment, it probably showed a bit of ruthlessness from our boys. I think if that game was maybe five or six years ago, we wouldn’t have won that game. Obviously, we didn’t know the result at the time, Cavan versus Tyrone, but Ciaran just had no fear.”

“That’s one of the positives of being a young fella, he had no mental scars. He just took the ball on as a young fella and tried to go up the field and score. Whereas if that was an experienced player, he’d probably recycle the ball and get into an established attack. Whereas Ciaran Moore just took it upon himself to run 80 metres down the field and kick the ball over the bar.

“I suppose there was a bit of a hoodoo over Mayo, we hadn’t beaten Mayo in a championship game in 13 years. That was a big one for us as well as the older players, to beat one of the bigger teams. We’ve just been on the roll since.”

There’s a lot of talk entering this weekend’s All-Ireland showpiece regarding how Donegal are going to deal with the threat of David Clifford.

Posting 8-53 to date, he’s the 2025 championship’s top scorer by quite some distance with Galway’s Robert Finnerty occupying second spot in the chart with 3-40.

Brendan McCole has been tasked with marking most of the marquee players that Donegal have come up against so far, doing a fantastic job in every duel to date, and so it would be anticipated that he will be given the role of picking up the five-time All Star.

The Donegal skipper was highly complimentary of the fellow full-forward when asked about him at the Donegal GAA media night.

However, he insisted that as well as Clifford, there’s a whole host of players in the Kingdoms ranks that can also cause a threat to any side in the country.

“Obviously, one of the all-time greats, to be honest. There’s no point in saying anything different about it. Obviously, since he came in from the very, very beginning, he’s been an unbelievable player.

“Looking at him on Saturday (against Kerry), he scored 1-9 and didn’t get man of the match. That’s the standards he set for himself as a player, obviously. He’s the county on his shoulders down there, but he obviously has a very good support cast with him as well. Obviously, Sean O’Shea and his brother Paudie, and there’s a lot of players in there, Dylan Geaney and big Joe O’Connor are flying there as well.”

“It’s not as if he’s a one-man band, there’s a very, very good team there. If you put too much focus on him, there’s always good footballers in Kerry and these boys will do damage as well.

“In terms of him, he is the man down there in Ireland. Obviously, he’s going to be the one to be watched.”