Ten years ago today (Septrember 23), Donegal won their second All-Ireland, with a bunch of players who were seen as serial losers for much of their careers. Rory Kavanagh, Christy Toye and Eamon McGee told us the inside story of the revolution.
KC : Back in 2007, Donegal won the League with an unbeaten campaign. It was the first trophy since the 1992 All-Ireland. You had lost 13 finals in a row in various competitions in between. Donegal followed up in the summer of 2007 with a dismal Championship. Why were Donegal under-achieving for so long?
CT : There were times we were unlucky. In the 1998 Ulster final, a breaking ball - or a push in the back! - let Joe Brolly in for a goal to win it.
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RK : Not being able to handle the pressure on the big day too. We weren't strong enough mentally. We didn't have a game-plan or a system. Jim (McGuinness) gave us something to rely on coming down the straight.
EMcG : We didn't have the mental strength. Remember when we played Armagh in a packed house in Croke Park in the 2004 Ulster final? We weren't able for it at all.
CT : We'd beaten Tyrone in the semi-final who were All-Ireland champions. The year before, we'd lost by a couple of points to Armagh in the All-Ireland semi-final. We thought we were closer to those teams than we actually were.
KC : Those Tyrone and Armagh sides were two of the greatest Ulster teams of all time, though.
EMcG : Colm McFadden says that, that when the noughties came around, we were up against really dominant Tyrone and Armagh teams.
CT : Just even look at the forwards that both of them had. There are very few teams now that could match that.
EMcG : Not only did they have better teams, but they had game-plans and a system. They were better coached. We just came out to play.
KC : There were other factors too, weren't there? Donegal had the tracksuit ravers image. A lot of people associate those days with Fat Frogs...
CT : Fat Frogs...Bacardi Breezer, Smirnoff Ice and WKD Blue in a pint glass.
EMcG : Good man, Christy!
RK : Back in 2007, we beat Kerry in Letterkenny and it was the first county game in O'Donnell Park in 30 years. We went out that night and myself and (Colm) McFadden went home early enough. We were working Monday morning and got word that there were still a few drinking. Myself and McFadden ended up going to the Wolfe Tone Bar to try and get them out but the boys were ossified at that stage.
CT : I wasn't there. Wile carry-on with those boys...
RK : There was no fucking moving them. They were singing songs...you couldn't even sit with them, they were that far gone. Then I got a call from a mate who'd had a baby. Myself and Colm went up to wet the head with that crew. Ended up on the beer for two days.
EMcG : You'd have that guilt driving to Convoy or wherever for training on the Tuesday. Thinking 'fuck it, I'm in trouble' but Toye was never in bother. I always wondered what Toye thought.
CT : I was captain the year before and Brian McIver dropped Eamon and (Kevin) Cassidy off the panel at one stage for disciplinary reasons. I rang McIver to try and sort it out and it was just a dead conversation, there was no way around it.
EMcG : You used to party at the right time. Did it not bother you what some of the rest of us were doing?
CT : Not really, the odd time you'd think 'Jesus Christ, what is this man at?' I remember ringing Neil McGee one day in a pub, just telling him to go home for his own sake, but there was no talking to him. Something like that, you'd just shake your head. At the same time, I was no angel in those days..
RK : Mickey Hegarty used to be giving out, 'even a dog wouldn't go drinking on the Tuesday!'
KC : A lot of the Donegal players stayed in Dublin drinking after drawing with them in the 2002 All-Ireland quarter-final. That's where the Spice Boys image originated.
CT : Mickey Moran said that we were going to go up to the players' lounge and show the Dubs that we don't have to take a drink. We were standing there, sipping water, and the Dubs came in and started drinking. We were going 'hold on, what's happening here?' Let's fucking show them.
KC : You and Rory were on the panel then. Were you among the handful of players to make the bus home?
CT : No.
RK : No.
CT : That was the culture. We didn't think there was anything strange about it. Other teams would have been doing the same. Nowadays, it would be strange not to do weights, back then, it was strange to do weights and not go out drinking.
KC : There was a perception that Donegal were nice boys playing nice football. Did Jim McGuinness deliberately knock that out of you?
RK : He definitely developed a siege mentality, whether it was with the media or opposition managers. He hammered home that it was us against them.
CT : I remember he showed us a few video clips at the start of his first year of us playing Armagh and a bit of a scuffle and we were being pushed around...and there were Donegal men standing around not doing anything. He'd be going mental over this.
KC : Rory, the picture you paint of those years in your book is quite different to that painted by Jim in his own book. You show a sharper edge to Jim. Did he read your book?
RK : I heard that when someone went to visit him in Glasgow, the book was in the room.
CT: In the bin, was it?
KC : It's unusual for a player to go back playing after writing a book. Did you get any reaction on the pitch to it?
RK : No, and I was waiting for it. Eamon had said it to me, not to react if anyone said anything about it. I thought when we were playing Dublin, Michael Darragh Macauley (Kavanagh had written that he was easy to wind up) or one of the Dubs would say something, but there was nothing.
CT : I remember when Jim came in, he sent around a text 'you are invited to a trial in Ballybofey'. There was no 'Yes, Christy' or 'hope you're well'. It was a blank canvas. Turn up and show what you can do.
KC : You all have regrets over losing winnable Ulster finals and an All-Ireland but do you feel that, overall, you achieved a lot?
CT : Even to win one Ulster title, we'd have jumped at it. That Ulster title in 2011 was huge, a first in 19 years. Even in the build-up, there were flags everywhere. It was nearly like an All-Ireland final, there was so much buzz around it, and winning it was just a pure relief.
RK : We squeezed a lot out of our last few years. If you look at where we were at, we squeezed an awful lot out of it. I'd have taken you right hand off if you told me we'd win an All-Ireland and three Ulster titles.
CT : I remember when Jim came in, he sent around a text 'you are invited to a trial in Ballybofey'. There was no 'Yes, Christy' or 'hope you're well'. It was a blank canvas. Turn up and show what you can do.
KC : Some of you have talked of how there was a sense of destiny about 2012. Are you haunted by the 2014 final defeat to Kerry, though?
EMcG : I watched it again one Christmas and I was nearly wincing.
RK : It just felt like a bad game, even for people watching. It felt like something was holding us back.
CT : There was so much more left in us, so much more that we could have given that day. I think of that game all of the time, I don't think of the 2012 final very much.
RK : We went back to the Citywest and the minors had lost the final too. It was just very fucking hard to take.
EMcG : There was a homecoming the next day in Donegal town. I just came straight off the bus and up to the hotel room.
KC : Any future Donegal managers in the 2012 crew?
EMcG : Michael Murphy is the first one you'd think of, then I'd be looking at Kavanagh at some stage. I know Rory and I know he has that kind of head on him."
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