Jim McGuinness was conscious that people might blink with disbelief on seeing his byline under the headline 'Defensive coaches leading game down dead-end'.
In his Irish Times column, he criticised both Galway and Roscommon for the defensive gameplan employed by both in the Connacht final and suggested a rule change whereby three players must be stationed at the 'offensive' end of the pitch at all times.
Pre-empting the response, he spent much of the article stressing that the defensive system he used in Donegal was specifically tailored to the players he had at the time and was never meant to become a general template.
They are not Donegal. This is a central point. That system was bespoke to us. Our defensive system gave us a platform to attack. It was suited to the Donegal players. What occurred on Sunday bore very little resemblance to that. All I saw was defending. Just defending in numbers but with no intensity.
He sighed that people would probably 'delight in the irony' of him calling for a limit on the number of defenders but this hasn't stopped people from doing exactly that.
The 2011 All-Ireland semi-final - still one of the most famous Gaelic football matches ever played - is still vivid in people's memories. It turns out that Donegal's later evolution hasn't banished it from people's minds.
Joe Brolly was quick into the fray.
No caption needed.. pic.twitter.com/7PbmODK0OQ
— Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) July 12, 2016
However, more significant even than Brolly's derisive response was a response underneath Joe's tweet. We suspect that Kevin Cassidy doesn't have too much time for Jim McGuinness these days.
@JoeBrolly1993 ???
— Kevin Cassidy (@KCASS7) July 12, 2016
