Mad to step back and look at just how quickly, and how fully, Brolly is prepared to change his attitude towards someone once they do something that he thinks vindicates his opinion on whoever he has a grudge against. You get the impresssion that he is absolutely delighted Donegal beat his own county, just so that he can use it as an excuse to hit the airwaves to go on the attack at Mickey Harte. Brolly's latest column, like his podcast last week, is essentially another lengthy ambush on Harte disguised as a column about Jim McGuinness. He finished this week's column with the quote:
Now contrast that with the last column he wrote on McGuinness, written just a few short months previous, when McGuinness agreed to take on the Donegal job. The only thing that has changed between the writing of the two colums is that McGuinness managed Donegal to victory over Harte's Derry. Here's some quote from that column:
- "I feel jealous of Jimmy's players. Jealous of the great adventure they are on. Jealous that they have such an inspiring, clever and committed leader. Jealous of the life lessons they are learning."
Now contrast that with the last column he wrote on McGuinness, written just a few short months previous, when McGuinness agreed to take on the Donegal job. The only thing that has changed between the writing of the two colums is that McGuinness managed Donegal to victory over Harte's Derry. Here's some quote from that column:
- "Jim's guiding principle is control. He dominated nearly every aspect of his players' lives ..." condemning how his players were forced to sign a "typed behavioural contract" which each Donegal player had to sign when the squad met for the first time
- Described McGuinness as "dark destroyer of Gaelic Football" who was ready to unleash his latest "virus" onto the game
- "Jimmy McGuinness is back and the man who helped bring in the era of control and domination of players is resuming where he left off"
- "Players' phones were collected after team talks on the morning of big games. An atmosphere of paranoia surrounded the squad."
- "I happened to call into the local Spar that night and caught Anthony Thompson and a few of the other regulars filling a bag with sweets, chocolate bars and choc ices.
"Does Jimmy know about this?" I asked. "Jesus Joe," said Thompson, "there's no women, no drink, no socialising. If we didn't have chocolate, we'd go mental altogether."