AS I made my way out of the changing rooms In Crossmaglen in 2010 after our humiliation against Armagh, I really thought that I had played my last game for Donegal.

I was still young and had plenty in the tank, but there were things outside of football that I wanted to hone in on. We had a young family at home with the twins Nia and Aoife born that October, so it was time to invest more time at home – or so I thought!

John Joe Doherty had stepped aside at the end of that campaign and Jim McGuinness was announced as the new Donegal manager. Jim had just taken the u-21s to the All-Ireland final so it was a natural progression for him to step up to senior.

I have to admit that when it was announced I never paid too much attention to it, as in my head my days were over and I was busy setting things up for life after football.

I was sitting at home one evening when my mobile rang and it was Jim. I had played with Jim for a good few years and got on well with him off the pitch so we had a very good conversation on the phone where he laid out his plans and he asked me to come back.

We spoke for a good hour where I explained to him how busy things were now with the twins and my own work life etc, and that if I couldn’t give it 100 percent then I wouldn’t be there. He said ‘I’ll leave it with you a week or so and I’ll call you back.’

When he rang back my mind was made up. I said ‘listen Jim, you have a great bunch of young lads coming through there and it might be better to run with that.’ Jim sold his dream again and he explained that in order to get to where he wanted to go with this team he needed a few experienced heads around the team. In the end I agreed to return and give whatever I had.

From the very first get-together you could just sense that things were different. We now had a set-up that was ultra-professional and every last player bought into it.

Jim met all players one-to-one and explained to them what it was going to take. Some players had to lose weight, some players had to gain muscle and each player was told in no uncertain terms what they needed to do.

Jim surrounded himself with an excellent backroom team with Rory Gallagher doing the coaching alongside Jim and he had every last detail nailed down with no grey areas. New medical staff, new kitmen, new S&C people, new video analysts – he basically started from scratch.

We were told that this was going to be severe so we kind of knew what to expect when training started, but I suppose nothing could prepare you for what was about to come. We trained like absolute animals and that is putting it lightly.

Now although some of those sessions were horrendous, the players enjoyed it and not one person complained. When we were in the middle of our heavy work I remember I would come home at night after training and I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink.

My body would be buzzing with sheer adrenaline and on top of that the twins would be getting up for their nightly feeds. Our bodies were put through so much on the training pitch that night that when it came time to sleep, the body couldn’t come back down.

Personally Jim brought my fitness levels to a new place, a place I never knew existed and I kind of enjoyed that punishment once the sessions were over.

Even though Jim had asked me to come back, our relationship that year was a strange one.

From the very first training session I just got the feeling that something just wasn’t right. Jim was standoffish with me, I just thought that it was because I had known him quite well on and off the pitch during his playing days and perhaps he wanted to break free from all of that and have no history with anyone so I just ignored all of his behaviour and kept my head down.

Over the space of a few months we would become one of the fittest teams in the country so now Jim had to work on our tactics and our systems of play.

We were blessed that we had two seriously talented footballing brains in our camp in Jim and Rory, and if those lads were paid by the hour for the amount of time they both spent analysing other teams and ourselves then they would be wealthy men.

Jim’s first port of call was to shore up our defence and he did that by dropping men back. This was a totally new approach for us but no one said a word and just ran with it because, like I said, everyone bought into what we were doing.

Our training drills were really basic but they focused on us being in the right place and having the right defensive shape and being able to do everything at 100 miles per hour.

Attacking play was something that came after you first stopped the opposition from playing and looking back now, if we had spent more time on it that year I honestly think we could have won that All-Ireland in 2011.

Our game-plan that year was simply to stop the opposition from scoring. It gained a lot of criticism but if you think back to how we are before that then this made sense.

However, you do have regrets. I remember against Dublin when we had them rattled and the game was in the melting pot. We won the ball back and as I looked up Colm McFadden was the only Donegal player in their half. As I glanced to my side I saw Michael Murphy in our half-back line and I remember roaring to him “Michael, get the fuck up the pitch, we can win this fucking game if we get another score.” However, Michael’s orders were to help out in defence and he was going to do what he was told.

Looking back now if we had thrown caution to the wind in the last quarter of that game, we would have won as Dublin were also down to 14 men.

After that season it was clear to see that we were extremely close but a few things had to be tweaked and great credit must go to Jim and Rory for changing things in the off-season and, well, the rest is history as they say.

You all know what happens next with the fall-out from the book and that game against Dublin was the last I’d ever play for Donegal.

After that game little did I know that I would fall out with Jim and we would never speak again.

Jim ruled with an iron fist and he was unhappy that I didn’t run the book by him and secondly he felt that I broke the rules within the camp. Lots will say Jim was right and lots will say there was no need for him to do what he did and that’s life.

Donegal went on to win the All-Ireland in 2012 and Jim had reached his goal. To take a team who got hammered out the gate in Crossmaglen 18 months earlier and turn them into All Ireland champions is and unbelievable achievement.

Even though Jim and I are now far from good friends, I have no problem acknowledging the amazing job he did for Donegal but I’d also like to add that the players deserve tremendous credit as do the likes of Rory Gallagher, who had a massive part to play in all of that, so it was far from a one-man show.

Jim brought Donegal to new heights, his attention to detail was second to none and we now had a set-up that the players wanted so badly for a long time.

Like any manager, Jim also had his flaws. Jim’s man management could have been a lot better and at times I think he let his one-dimensional approach and stubbornness get in the way of what was the right thing to do from a football perspective. After 2013 he fell out with Rory Gallagher and Rory left the camp, likewise Mark McHugh was cut adrift. Rory would have gotten a lot of praise for the role he played during those times and that wouldn’t have sat easy with Jim. Mark was also a huge part of that game-plan and he could have done more to keep that in place.

If you look back on that 2014 All-Ireland final with Kerry, if Jim McGuinness had Mark McHugh and myself on the pitch and Rory Gallagher beside him on the sideline could we have helped? Possibly so.

You are never going to please everyone but it’s only fair that I give my honest opinion and praise where praise is due but also point out where I think mistakes were made.

My year under Jim was a successful one and I can sit here and say that I kept my word. When we spoke at the start of the year I said to him I’d give it my best and do whatever I could and I kept my end of the bargain. It took a lot of effort on everyone’s part, training was brutal at times but it got us to where we needed to be.

Well that’s my journey through my Donegal managers. I had disagreements with almost every one of them but I’d like to think that if they were to answer honestly they would say that I never let them down when I was needed most and that I would gladly go into the trenches for them when asked.

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