THESE DAYS JIMMY McGuinness is Donegal’s All-Ireland winning boss, performance coach to the aspiring soccer players at Celtic and sometimes advisor to Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley.
But before all that, McGuiness cut his cloth on the Gaelic football fields.
And while he lined out with distinction for his club Naomh Conaill and his county Donegal, McGuinness also shone on the Sigerson Cup stage winning three medals with IT Tralee (2) and UUJ.
The semi-finals of the third-level competition take place this afternoon in Athlone with DCU facing DIT while UCC meet Athlone IT.
The students involved will be seeking to emulate well-known names like McGuinness who passed their university Gaelic football exams with distinction over the years.
Here’s a snapshot of those players in their pomp as college stars.
Billy Sheehan (UCC) and Aidan O'Rourke (UUJ) - 2001
Jim McGuinness (UUJ) - 2001
2001
2003
2003
2005
2005
2006
2007
2007
2007
2008
2009
2009
2010
2010
2011
2011
2012
Brilliant stuff. Best of luck to the guy. Wouldn’t it be gas if he won the World Cup with South Africa to stick two fingers up to all the guys who were giving him a hard time last season.
@Jim Demps: Jones deserved all the criticism he got. The Munster attack was stagnant and uninspired under his tutelage. Nice guy though and I hope he finds some form of redemption in South Africa.
@Jim Demps: could very easily win it too. Strong balanced team.
@Jim Demps: munster’s attack has been awful the last few years.
@Jim Demps: Yeah, it would also be gas given that he was terrible at Munster. Crazy appointment if true.
@Jim Demps: Jim you know bloody well that munster needed a new attack coach and by all accounts you’ve swapped a fiat for a bmw
@Brian Brian: Deserved ALL the criticism he got? Some of it was way over the top. Unless you were a regular attendee at Munster training sessions, I don’t see how you can make an informed judgement of his abilities. If South Africa end up with the same problems Munster had, you could have a point, but it’s nearly impossible to judge where the fault lies, given JVG also had some responsibility for the attack and this is his first head coach gig.
Hopefully they get him in nefore the world cup to boost irelands chances of winning the Quarter final, all going well!
@Cormac O’Halloran: classic
Good luck to him , he gave everything he had to munster on and off the field. He deserves to be a success
Will be amazing experience for Felix if it comes off, clearly Rassie was impressed with him during their time together.
@Rochelle: it would be some turnaround for Felix if true. As you say Rassie must have highly rated him.
Best of luck to him, very poorly treated by Munster and their fans.
@Tom McGirr:
What did the fans ever do to him??
@Tom McGirr: The fans???
@Tom McGirr: Well from what I’ve seen on here it’s ” mainly ” the Leinster Brigade who were saying Jones was poor.
@Tom McGirr: obviously you know nothing about munster rugby with a stupid statement like that.
@Decko49:
You are some beauty , so it must be Leinster’s fans fault :: He was sacked by Munster and encouraged by the Munster fans on here , who did a “Kealety” on him. God they never admit when they do, one of their own people !!!!
@Martin Quinn:
Figure out what World Cup was held in 2017 yet Martin??
Great news for everyone except South Africa tbh.
@KH: Although I was hugely frustrated by Munster’s attack, there really must be more to the picture here. Erasmus clearly rates him hugely, as did all the players and Van Graan.
I’d wonder how much was his responsibility at Munster
@JF Murphy: well then the answer has to be that the Munster backs aren’t good enough. Given they’ve been useless under 3 coaching regimes it really looks that way.
@KH:
Munster (82) finished 3rd behind Glasgow (83) and Leinster (95) in trys scored last season which is on a par with the top teams in the Top 14 and Premiership in trys / match.
Munster’s attack was excellent last season except against Saracens and Leinster…hence the change.
You can’t knock Munster for aspiring to be the best.
@Stanley Marsh: would like to have more details about those tries. For example, what percentage of Munster’s 82 tries were scored by forwards from picking and going, and what percentage were scored by backs through true attacking play? In Europe, they weren’t even in the top five for numbers of tries scored. Or defenders beaten, clean breaks, meters made, etc. I feel like these are all useful indicators of the potency of attacking play. I don’t know what’s at the root of their inability to threaten defences, but I think we have plenty of decent backs. Ultimately the buck stops with the coaches. That’s the responsibility they take on.
@B Collins:
Afraid I don’t have the time or energy to give you answers to those questions but I’m sure there are sites out there that could.
Regardless the general view (including mine) last season was that Munster’s attack was very good against the vast majority of opposition except for when they played the very top teams.
The OPs view that “the Munster backs aren’t good enough” seems odd given that backline includes players like Earls, Conway, Farrell, Carbury and Murray.
@B Collins:
Ultimately the buck stops with the coaches. No it doesn’t :: on the game time it is all down to the players picked , just like last weekend it was down to the players :: before and after the games the coaches come into it but game time is the players :::
Rumours of both Sexton and Carbery our for World Cup. Press conference soon from Joe for those wondering, which deviates from his normal PC schedule.
@WillKeepTheW: PC schedule?
@JC: press conference I would guess
@Norris Kevin: yep
@WillKeepTheW: What time is press conference?
I heard that too which is worrying. Also Earl’s and Murray could be out. Hopefully it’s just rumors.
@WillKeepTheW: you are a plonker
https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/rugby-world-cup-2019/joe-schmidt-upbeat-on-cian-healy-injury-and-says-there-is-no-internal-noise-regarding-best-captaincy-38440987.html
@WillKeepTheW: so I guess you got that one wrong.
@WillKeepTheW: there’s photos of him training in carton house today?
An awful lot of knowledgeable people have said that rate him highly based on day-to-day experience with him. Meanwhile, a lot of keyboard warriors criticise him based purely on what they see from the outside. By all accounts, van Graan was heavily involved in the Munster attack strategy. Could be that Jones is a great analyst or a quality skills coach. When someone of Rassie’s calibre is bringing him in, there’s obviously something he has. On another note, along with Nienaber and Coetzee, South Africa should have a massive bank of information on Ireland.
@ScewMadd: well what were you expecting? How else should fans react when their team can’t compete with trophy sides in attack? Of course they’ll ask questions of the coaching ticket. It’s not a stretch. And I say that as a Munster fan who knows nothing about the day-to-day or any coaches ability. I’m just saying that coaches are responsible for results.
I don’t get all the Jones bashing. Nobody knows what his level of control was at Munster or what the structure was, so blaming him for Munster’s shortcomings is odd. Also, being involved with an average team reaching European semis every year is impressive. It wasn’t long ago he was being touted as the next big thing with Joe taking him under his wing during summer internationals and the media hyping him. Rare too that a man of his age would be given the job he got without being high potential. Power to him of this move comes off and fingers crossed he develops and adds to Irish rugby in the future
And if South Africa do well, then maybe we should look at van grann
@Ted O’Dalaigh: also fair.