BRENDAN ROGERS RECKONS the return of Jim McGuinness is a ‘godsend’ for neighbours Donegal who have the potential to be an ‘animal of a team’ again.

That’s hardly good news for Rogers and Derry who have claimed back to back Ulster SFC titles and will challenge for their first ever three-in-a-row in 2024.

Midfielder Rogers, the PwC GAA/GPA Player of the Month for July in football, stopped short of saying the second coming of the Donegal messiah is worrying for Derry.

In fact, the Slaughtneil man said he personally ‘wasn’t too bothered one way or the other’ when he heard the dramatic news earlier this week.

But he acknowledged that the 2012 All-Ireland winner and UEFA Pro Licence holder has the capacity to have an immediate and ‘massive impact’ on the Donegal squad.

“The one thing you can’t overlook with Jim McGuinness is the intensity of things, that seems to be the common factor with everything he does,” said Rogers. “That seems to be as big a factor as anything in his setup.

“And if you can bring that intensity every single day, you’re going to have an animal of a team that is competitive with anyone. So what can he bring to the future? Who knows.

“But one thing you can probably guarantee is a bit of cohesion in Donegal again, structure, an intense group of players. What happens from there will be up to Jim to figure out between now and then but I’d imagine those factors will be non-negotiables with him when he steps in with them.”

McGuinness led Donegal to three Ulster titles and a breakthrough All-Ireland in his previous stint in charge in the early 2010s.

A decade or so on, they’re in a difficult spot and the Glenties man will be their third manager in a matter of months.

Paddy Carr and Aidan O’Rourke presided over their relegation to Division 2 and they eventually suffered a heavy All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final loss to Tyrone.

“Do I think it’ll be a massive impact for them? 100%,” said Rogers of the McGuinness comeback.

“I think it will be positive. It will go from them thinking, ‘Division 2, bit of a rough year, where do we go from here?’ to a winning mentality from the get-go because the players will have an assumption of success, or at least of competing for honours again, even at a national level. So probably a godsend for everyone in Donegal.

“For me, personally, I wasn’t too bothered one way or the other. It’s not really something for me to worry about.

“For the GAA as a whole, it’s good to have all your best personnel in the GAA environment. You’re looking at a UEFA Pro Licence holder, he’s spent a lot of time in America, he’s coming back to enhance the game of Gaelic football.

“He came up with some brilliant ideas in terms of how he impacted Donegal and a lot of teams took a lot of things from that.

“If he comes back and can bring another string to the bow of the GAA, in terms of how we can learn and progress the game, sure that would be good for everyone.”

Derry displayed their own innovation this season with an unexpected attacking edge to their play in the All-Ireland semi-final loss to Kerry.

They pushed the reigning champions hard and perhaps even caught Jack O’Connor’s men by surprise with the ferocity of their play following a more subdued quarter-final against Cork.

“Given the way Kerry set up, you kind of know they’re not as compact in terms of flooding defence,” said Rogers, whose side came up two points short after a cracker. “And if Kerry isn’t going to play a defensive style of football, then we can’t approach our attacking as if it is. That would be just unbelievably naive and really easy for them to defend. You have to stretch a team in a way that makes it uncomfortable for them.

“And I don’t think it would be comfortable for any team when the likes of Conor McCluskey and Gareth McKinless go at you one-on-one.

“We knew we could do it and we made a decision that we’d be going at players. We were comfortable doing it. We had only done it in bouts in games, whereas we just had to do it more often against Kerry. It’s good to know it’s in the locker.”

On the future of interim Derry manager Ciaran Meenagh, who took over following the pre-Ulster final departure of Rory Gallagher, Rogers admitted he’s in the dark.

“There’s absolutely nothing confirmed at this point,” said the former full-back. “There’s not even a rumour floating about about what’s happening. It’s just kind of been left for the meantime.

“I think from the players’ perspective, the county board have been very good at how they’ve gone about things in the last number of years so I think we’re happy enough to just wait and go with whatever happens in the background of things, between Ciaran and the county board and things like that.

“Most assumptions would be that those guys are there for next year. Until such time as we’re told otherwise, that has to be the approach. But I can’t imagine it’ll be out of the woodwork for too long. Usually these things get wrapped up fairly soon. But yeah, absolutely nothing concrete at the moment.”