Extra time brings chaos. I didn’t have a magic formula for dealing with it: no routine or superstition to follow in the dressingroom. Looking back, though, I can tell what decided those contests.
It was all about energy and not just the physical fitness to keep going but instinct. You are going to have to make decisions when you’re fatigued physically and mentally so if your instincts are good and kick in automatically there’s a good chance that you’ll be fine.
In Derry on Sunday there was no surprise about the players who had the biggest influence on extra time. Ryan McHugh came into it. Jason McGee came into it. Niall O’Donnell had a huge game for Donegal.
The smarter the player, the better they perform because play at that stage is chaotic and making the correct decision is even harder. Do I go hard down that channel or loop back? What do I need to do here?
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It also benefits the skilful player, whose instincts are sharpened to do the right thing under awful pressure and in those scenarios, their decisions are more likely to be the right ones.
Tactical thinking goes out the window and more space appears around the pitch.
Ordinary anxieties get worse and it comes down to teams being more afraid to lose than willing to chase a win. The fear of losing trumps the confidence to push on and seize the initiative. When a team gets a one-point lead, they nearly try to defend it.
That actually happened in the Down-Armagh game if not so much in the other semi-final. Tyrone did push out a two and three-point lead a couple of times but that tended to result in an outbreak of caution, aimed at protecting the lead. It’s a symptom of teams not feeling fully comfortable in their own skin.
You don’t see it with teams like Dublin and Kerry, the way they play the next ball exactly the same way and look to build big leads. Punish the opposition and put them away when the chance is there.
Extra time means chaos and a chance for one team to reflect on how the hell they didn’t settle it in 70 minutes.
At the break between normal time and extra time, you could see Tyrone trudging off – completely understandable when you factor in what they had been through and how big an effort they invested only to let it slip.
With a couple of minutes to play and a one-point lead, Tyrone had the ball on two occasions. Michael McKernan on the left-hand side, had a real, hit-and-hope effort which was turned over.
Seánie O’Donnell had the other and carried aggressively into traffic, trying to blast through the cover – which was shown to be optimistic.
In both cases a bit more composure was needed to protect possession. Instead, Donegal came up with one more chance and Brendan McCole equalised; you could feel the energy in the stadium surge behind Donegal, as they went back into the dressingroom.
It was going to be a mammoth task for Tyrone to recharge and come out again ready to compete.
Donegal also ran the bench very effectively. They reintroduced two players from the start in extra time, Patrick McBrearty, Dara Ó Baoill and Jeaic McKelvey came on just at the end of normal time. All helped to reinvigorate the team while the subs who came in also added to the effect.
An obvious impact here is that Tyrone had to go through extra time a week ago and that was bound to take its toll but I believe that having the lead for so long and losing it was the real killer for them in extra time.
I was going into the game, almost accepting that Donegal wouldn’t get to the level they reached beating Derry but also wondering what level they would actually reach and wondering if it would be enough to beat Tyrone.
They definitely didn’t get there in the first half. Tactically they weren’t much different but the energy they needed to bring to their one-on-one running if they were going to scythe through defences – hard, direct running and support play – wasn’t anything like it had been the previous week.
They probably had more space that day but were still very passive on Sunday. Part of the credit goes to Tyrone shutting everything down but part was the knock-on effects of beating Derry.
Donegal also had to play a completely different style because they were forced to try to break down Tyrone, who were then able to hit them on the break.
Whatever was said at half-time transformed them. They came out in the second half a completely different side, taking the ball on the run rather than standing. They were putting more pace on the ball and on their own play. There was no tactical adjustment, just a greater commitment to the game plan.
At the same time, Tyrone were still winning with the clock ticking over 70 minutes. They had done what Donegal did to Derry, frustrated them and held the ball.
For the second week running, Mattie Donnelly was leadership personified, an old school warrior taking ball out from the back to relieve pressurised situations and kicking a superb score when really needed with his right foot from 40 metres.
Donegal were too static in the first half and got turned over on numerous occasions. They had six or seven wides and dropped three short in the first half. In the same 35 minutes Tyrone were clinical in their use of the ball with just one wide.
That pattern continued in the second half. Donegal racked up the shots but Tyrone’s efficiency kept them in it. Over the course of the whole game, including extra time, Donegal had 41 shots compared to Tyrone’s 28. That’s a big difference for a game that went to extra time.
Tyrone will benefit from what happened all the same. Those younger players have played extra time in championship matches in Breffni Park and Celtic Park. That’s invaluable.
There’s a two-week break before the Ulster final. Donegal are trying to play an attritional style of football but as well as resting they need to maintain rhythm and patterns and build relationships with players. They’ll review what they did for a couple of days. By the middle or end of this week, they’ll turn their attention to Armagh.
I expect Jim will take them away for a weekend for a camp together to focus on a particular opposition. The idea will be to leave that camp with a blueprint for that opposition and confidence that everybody is familiar and comfortable with those plans going into game week.
They’ve probably exceeded expectations at this stage but the team will want to keep going and win Ulster. I’m not convinced that they need to but that will be the plan.
If you look at it and ask which team really needs to win it and 10 times out of 10, the answer is Armagh. It’s great for Donegal to be there and they’ll compete but at this point in Jim’s project, I’m not sure that they have to win it. Progressing into the All-Ireland groups, which are being drawn today, will be just as important in terms of what they learn.
