Armagh legend on why his team would not have controversial Donegal move
Donegal took the unusual decision to break away early from the pitch parade ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland final loss to Kerry.
The move was booed by some inside the stadium and criticised in other quarters.
While it is impossible to say whether it was detrimental to Donegal’s below-par performance on the day, it certainly didn’t help.
Speaking on the Second Captains podcast after the final, Oisín McConville, an All-Ireland winner with Armagh in 2002, spoke of how his side would never have pulled such a stunt under their manager Joe Kernan, who also managed McConville at Crossmaglen.
He said: “It just shows how much planning goes into it. [Donegal] thought ‘it’s different, there’s a lot of waiting around and this is not the way we normally approach it’.
“It was very noticeable. The President’s thing in the last two weeks, because of the way he’s moving himself, has taken longer and the game hasn’t started on time. They’ve probably taken all of that into account…
“Joe Kernan used to focus in on the parade in a big way. In fact, every time we played, even if the Armagh flag was on the inside, he would actually put it on the outside. He would actually get it changed to the outside.
“The reason for that was that there was no stopping on the thing, you could walk around and not get caught up in it.
“Any time I’ve played under Joe Kernan we’ve done that, including club finals that’s eight times. That’s definitely something he was very conscious of, and that you stay in the parade right until the end.
“That was just a decision he made and that something we done. I think it sort of worked for us as well.”
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