BY DONEGALDAILY STAFF IN DUBLIN: DAYS like these don’t come around very often.
The previews have been done and the pundits have had their say.
And at 3.30pm today Jim McGuinness and his coaching staff will send their players onto Croke Park to do battle with Cork in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final.
Up to 30,000 of Donegal’s 161,000 population – almost one in five – will be in Dublin for the match.
Most will, by now, have learned off the words to ‘Jimmy’s Winning Matches’ by Kilcar singer Rory Gallagher…..that should light up Croker!
Almost everyone else will be back home, crammed into living rooms, packing out pubs and cheering on our best county side in a generation.
And our incredible Donegal diaspora around the globe will be watching the match, in San Francisco, in Perth, on boats off the west coast of Africa, in London, Rome, Paris, New York, Sydney, Moscow, Boston, and Toronto…and a thousand other places in between.
Twenty years on from Donegal’s greatest ever day, a new crop of county heroes have been moulded into another formidable team.
We’re just 70 minutes from another all-Ireland final.
Victory today will be even sweeter, as once again all the pundits back Cork.
“Ultimately we are 70 minutes away from an All-Ireland final. The reward is unbelievable for our players,” said Jim McGuinness.
“Cork have been in finals and they have won a final.
“But for our lads, they have never been there, they have never experienced that and you’d have to hope that there would be a hunger and a rawness in us to make the most of this opportunity.
“Even if we give it absolutely everything and are very competitive for the full 70 minutes, I still think it’s going to be a huge battle and a huge challenge for us.
“I just hope that is the case and we can go out and do that and give a very good account of ourselves.
“Hopefully you are happy coming off the field that you have given it everything, if you have given it everything there is nothing left to give.
“If they wake up on Monday morning and they feel that there was another 20 per cent in them, or they could have done this or that, worked harder here or there, been smarter in situations, that is when regrets come in the door.
“If you are honest, give it a 100 per cent, everybody in Donegal will be very happy and proud of them.
“I know that I will and I know that I won’t be looking back at the game with any regrets.
“That is the way we have always approached it.
“I just hope that our lads can look at themselves in the mirror on the Monday morning and be happy with what they have given out on the pitch.
“And if they do that, I know we will all be proud of them and the result will take care of itself,” added the manager.
Believe!
