When Jim McGuinness found himself in Tralee as a student in the late 1990s, it didn't take him long to figure out why the Kingdom, above all counties, had a knack for serially winning All-Irelands. Val Andrews, who was the coach of a densely talented college squad which included Michael Donnellan and Pádraig Joyce, inculcated a training atmosphere of total absorption. They trained twice a day four times a week, with gym sessions in the morning and then pitch work after class.

What disconcerted McGuinness, though, was the efforts that Seamus Moynihan used to make to the morning sessions, leaving Glenflesk at dawn so he could pump weights with the others. "You always hear about the lovely Kerry footballer and the natural footballer and that. But in my experience, they were so, so dedicated to making themselves better that they look natural, if that makes sense. It was a wake-up call in many respects. And Seamus didn't have to prove anything at that stage."

When the IT had an away match, every hour of their day was accounted for on a flip chart. Every detail mattered. At weekends, McGuinness used to drive the Atlantic Way when the roads were genuinely wild to play club matches with Glenties. He understood that his college side was operating in a more streamlined way than the Donegal senior squad.

Note of defiance

Thirteen years would pass before he had a chance to remould the county team as he saw fit but it is clear, listening to him talk about the nascent days of his apprenticeship, that McGuinness absorbed everything. When he was looking for someone to train the Dublin-based players, he opted for Meath man Eugene Eivers. "Well, I lived with him in Tralee for two years," he said by way of explanation. "Everyone I have in the set up I really trust. That is very important."

This was at the end of what was an exhausting Saturday which began with an early-morning training session, was followed by an open day for the public before more than three hours of media interviews.

The club house in Ballybofey was emptying when he sat down with a large gathering of print journalists and it was only after answering questions for 40 minutes that McGuinness admitted he was in a rush; he was keen to make it home for the end of first birthday celebrations. Even then, he obliged a last request for a further interview.

If Donegal’s advance to the All-Ireland final in 2012 was regarded as miraculous, then there has been an understated note of defiance about this year’s progression. But then, as now, certain keywords pop up again and again in his answers. Trust. Honesty. Respect. Preparation.

It was early October when McGuinness and the players met to decide if they wanted to adhere to the principles for another season. The story of how Michael Murphy u-turned the car in Monaghan on his way to International Rules training once he heard that the manager was unsure about whether or not to go on was something McGuinness only learned about recently. "That's news to me. I read about it like everyone else."

Murphy called a meeting of the squad and they met with McGuinness shortly afterwards. The question he put to them was simple.

“We needed to know what we wanted to do. A half-baked attitude wasn’t going to win anything this year. Everybody had to be either fully in or not fully in. There is no point conning people and saying, ‘We’ll start training in a couple of weeks and everything will be okay and we’ll pick up pieces and build momentum’. It isn’t about that. It’s about, ‘Do you want to be remembered and how do you want to be remembered?’ or ‘Do you want to be remembered for being beaten by 16 points in a quarter-final?’

“That was the question that had to be answered, and then it was about what was involved in that and are we prepared to do that? I wanted that out in the open. I didn’t want anybody going into anything blind. I wanted to gauge the room. If I felt that it wasn’t genuinely in the room, then I probably wouldn’t have went on.”

It wasn’t an instantaneous thing, with emotive speeches and promises and everyone leaving the room in a fog of euphoria. Instead, he asked them to go away and think about what they were buying into: the sacrifice, the discipline, the winter slog. When they reconvened, he knew they were in.

Exasperated outburst

As it happened, McGuinness decided to flip his customary training regime, which had involved high intensity first followed by gradual endurance training as the season progressed. He was concerned that prioritising intensity might adversely affect the group of players whose 2013 season has been effectively ruined by training.

And so they started again, in the sand dunes and in Ballybofey and with early-morning gym sessions.

They have this habit when it comes to giving respect. A cross word or an exasperated outburst is fine, but there is a line they don’t cross.

“It’s the tone. You can be snappy with someone to push them. That’s fine. You can talk down to someone, or go over the top – that’s disrespect. There is a boundary. If that line is broken, we all come in and everyone does the press-ups. At the end it all we say: ‘We don’t disrespect’.”

Think about the number of hours McGuinness has stood on the sideline, in farcically bleak weather, coaxing, coaching and watching. Watching them run and hurt. And watching them change. They have all changed.

As he noted last week, when he took the Donegal post, he and his wife Yvonne had one child: now they have five. Their lives have changed: so too have those of the players he has worked with. And even though it is the game that brings them together, it is not solely about that.

“When they’re fully focussed they’re a joy to work with. From a coaching point of view, an absolute joy. I have had experiences of players who were really good players with a bad attitude.

Chunk of time

“It’s very frustrating to coach someone like that. It doesn’t happen with our lads. They work really hard and they push really hard. They try to push themselves to the border, to the edge of their intensity. They try to move forward and so many of them, even the seasoned players, have made progress on their weak side over the four years.

“For me, it’s that whole thing and the journey with them. In five years, with the under-21s and the seniors, that’s a huge chunk of time out of your life. It’s a big part of your life. You’re living with these fellas and coaching these fellas. Some of them have got married, some of them have had kids, gone to college and are out of college again. These are all life experiences. It’s a journey we’re on.”

Words to the wise: McGuinness on . . .

The Kerry football culture:

“We had Pádraig Joyce and Michael Donnellan and all these players and six or seven of the Kerry players, so it was a great dressing room to be involved in. And it was great fun. The whole team used to go out on a Thursday night , there was great camaraderie.

I have a great group of friends down there and I am sending them an odd text at the moment that if you hear anything in the Kerry team to let me know. But there is nobody responding to anything.

But it is great to be down there and it is even better when you are successful because you have bonded. And the Kerry people were fantastic – really good people, really good to me.”

Feelings about the Mayo defeat:

“Maybe that was an emotional reaction to think like that at the time, but I was very angry and very frustrated with what had gone on. On some levels I felt the carpet was pulled from under our feet and we didn’t get the chance to prepare properly. That wasn’t sitting comfortably with me. If you were going rectify that, you needed to know that your men were with you.”

How success helps team bonding:

“No doubt about it. If you believe you have done all the right things and worked really hard and earned it together. Once you get that victory then, of course, I don’t think there is a better feeling in the world than just sitting looking across the dressing room at a teammate and you’re shattered and he is sitting there shattered and you have done something out on the pitch . . . And that bond stays. Then maybe 20 years [later], you might have somebody from Letterkenny meeting someone from Gweedore, spotting them across the street and it is there. It never leaves and it probably never leaves a lot of the minds of supporters as well, so it is a very special thing.”