All Not Well in Donegal?

Interesting first round of club championship
Mark McHugh ruling the roost for Kilcar v Glenswilly
Dungloe beating Termon with an 8 point haul from Adrian Sweeney

so Jim has stepped down from the hot seat after 4 years at the helm. Was this inevitable after the defeat to Kerry or did the Donegal folk expect him have another go at wining a second All-Ireland.

Did Jim think it was too big of a risk to go again only to come back empty handed and thus damaging the reputation?

Will he take the job again further down the line?

Will he manage another county team?

Who will replace him as Donegal Manager?

Loads on interesting questions and only time will provide the answers.

I don't think that anyone could have been surprised by Jimmy's resignation. He must surely have been very tempted to go last year, but perhaps felt obligated following the manner of the Mayo defeat.

Of the 3 possible scenarios for Donegal this summer (i.e. Win AI; hammered early; narrow defeat in late summer), the latter would have been the hardest to walk away from. However, in saying that, I don't really think that there was ever a realistic scenarion in which he would have remained in charge.

I don't see Jim managing anyone else, at least not anytime soon. He has a large, young family, and is busy winning Scottish Premierships and Ryder Cups. His achievements were remarkable, and he deserves all the credit that has come his way.

As for Donegal next year, it'll be a very tough task for any new manager to get similar effort out of this group. McFadden and Gallagher, both key players in the AI run, are on the way down, while even those in their mid-late 20s have a lot of football mileage on the clock now, and it's a huge ask for them to put the shoulder as forcefully to the wheel again. They have enough good players and experience to hang around the top table for a bit longer, but I doubt that we'll see them lifting Sam again for a while.