JIM McGuinness says it will take something ‘different’ to knock five-in-a-row All-Ireland champions Dublin off their perch.
McGuinness is the last manager to defeat Dublin in Championship football. His Donegal staged a sensational raid in the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final.
The former Donegal boss believes that too many teams are playing the same style – and it will be the brave side to change it up who will profit.
Dublin begin their defence of Sam Maguire this weekend against Westmeath.
“ I do believe there are teams out there who have the potential to do that,” McGuinness told Off The Ball.
“It’s going to be a competitive Championship and you have a number of teams that have a chance.
“We won the All-Ireland in 2012 by playing our own way and we cut our own cloth to try and be successful. We were successful ultimately, we won three Ulster Championships in four years, we won the All-Ireland and were in another final.
“We were successful as a group having done it a certain way, and everybody then in terms of ‘group-think’ decided that it was the way to do it but it was never really implemented in the way we implemented it.”
McGuinness often talks about ‘transition’ when assessing his All-Ireland winning Donegal squad of 2012.
The style, he feels, has been often copied but not equalled.
He said: “A lot of teams who tried to copy that model are getting back into a defensive shape but not with the same defensive intensity.”
“When they get turnovers they’re going laterally rather than direct so it’s a bad imitation of what we were trying to do.
“I find it interesting that almost every team in the country is playing the same system. To my mind, it would obviously mean that the squad with the best players will ultimately win the Championship.”
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