Aidan O’Rourke said Donegal’s disappointing display against Roscommon was not helped by the off the field controversies that have dominated the game in the county over the past few “tumultuous” weeks.
O’Rourke and Paddy Bradley took charge of the senior team for their final league game at Dr Hyde Park which ended in a comfortable 0-21 to 0-09 win for the home side, meaning relegation to Division Two for Donegal.
There are reports that talks are planned for Monday over the vacant manager’s position following the sudden departure of Paddy Carr during the week.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport after today’s game, O’Rourke said he felt sorry for the players who have been caught up in the chaos.
“For a while it’s been a tumultuous environment this past number of weeks,” he said.
“There’s no doubt that’s affected the players and the focus on all of those things.
“This week was really about keeping them moving forward because it’s been a chaotic and emotionally tough week for everybody – Paddy (Carr) most of all.
“And ultimately when Paddy asked us to take the boys as far as today it was difficult to do that.
“But we were asked to do a job with the Donegal senior team and to not finish the league out would have been really difficult to do
“And Paddy in particular felt that should be done in terms of the commitment that was given at the start of the year.”
O’Rourke added: “Yeh, it was a long week for everybody and the people who feel this the most are the players
“To be fair, they still have to go and play football and prepare and that’s extremely difficult in the circumstances.”
Whether or not O’Rourke and Bradley remain in charge for next month’s Ulster Championship opener with Down is likely to be decided in the coming days.
What is definite is that Donegal will be playing Division 2 football next season after another disappointing display.
“In the first half we left a lot of chances behind but the nature of where they are at the moment, they probably just ran out of road in the second half,” O’Rourke said.
“We were probably a bit frustrated at half time. We felt we should have been in a better position. We felt the scoreboard was a bit harsh on us at half time. We had played some decent football.
“It has been a pattern through the league that second halves haven’t been where we want them to be.
“There’s a lot of stuff involved in that but more than ever, with the week that was in it, maybe there wasn’t as much in the tank this week as there should have been.”
