Darran O’Sullivan, Keith Higgins and Alan Dillon on what makes Donie Buckley so good?

The way back home can sometimes be complex. Not all doors remain open, not all welcomes are unconditional.

In early March 2020, Kerry GAA released a statement confirming Donie Buckley was no longer part of Peter Keane’s management team. Buckley was thanked for his “valuable contribution” and wished “the very best in the future.” Just 18 months after his appointment, he was gone. History was repeating itself.

The Castleisland man’s two stints coaching his native county have ended prematurely. In 2012, midway through his second season as part of Jack O’Connor’s Kerry back room team, Buckley left.

On his return to the set-up that year following knee surgery, Buckley found his coaching role had become diluted. He didn’t see out the season, and by 2013 he was training the Mayo footballers. Mayo wasn’t redemption for Buckley, but there was certainly a degree of restoration for him out west between 2013-18.

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Six years, four All-Ireland final appearances (including a replay), and three Mayo management teams later, Buckley made his way back home to Kerry again, this time as part of Keane’s back room team.

Problem was, Buckley was not Keane’s choice. He was foisted upon Keane as a sort of proviso by the county board on the appointment getting the green light. From the off, it felt like an uncomfortable arranged marriage.

Kerry contested the All-Ireland final in 2019, but on returning from his annual Florida winter break, he again found his role in the Kerry camp had been downgraded. Rumours of disquiet grew and by March Buckley was out again.

“One of the things he probably would have liked to have had with us in Kerry was more time,” says former Kingdom captain Darran O’Sullivan, who trained under Buckley in 2011-12.

Buckley, a former Clare County Council engineer based in Ennis, was part of Seamus McEnaney’s Monaghan management team in 2021 and 2022. However, the road has now taken him back to Mayo.

“I’m not sure it was a case of unfinished business because it’s basically a new team,” suggests Keith Higgins. “I’d say it’s more he had been keeping an eye on Mayo, noticed the potential there and thought he could offer something.”

Buckley was joint Clare manager in 2006 before enjoying a successful spell coaching Limerick between 2009-2010, but it was during his time in Mayo when he really carved out a reputation as one of the country’s top coaches.

He worked under three different Mayo managers – James Horan, the joint Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes pairing, and Stephen Rochford. Buckley was the constant throughout that high-performing era, staying on-board as the ship’s chief engineer despite various captains in the wheelhouse.

“I played for years where we didn’t have that type of coach,” recalls former Mayo captain Alan Dillon. “So, when you do find one, you make sure to try keep hold of him.

“Fitness, tackling, skill execution – they were the three aspects he always preached.”

O’Sullivan was shortlisted for Footballer of the Year in 2011 and while it would be too simplistic to suggest Buckley was the difference-maker, his coaching certainly didn’t hurt the fleet-footed forward.

“I was feeling good that season, I had been on the panel a couple of years at that stage,” recalls O’Sullivan.

“Donie’s stuff with the forwards would have been more working as a unit without the ball, positioning and tackling and hunting in packs. You took energy from that, it added something new to your game.”

Ferocious, controlled tackling is the area many think of when talking about Buckley’s coaching strengths. It became a hallmark of his Mayo teams.

[ GAA Statistics: Cillian O'Connor and Aidan O'Shea - Mayo's first line of defence ]

In his pomp, Higgins was regarded as one of Gaelic football’s best defenders and Mayo were seen as one of the most aggressive tackling sides in the country, generating huge energy from turnovers.

“Donie did put a big emphasis on the tackle in training,” recalls Higgins. “But it was more about creating a mindset, that if we focus on the tackle and focus on being a hard-tackling team, we will convince ourselves that’s what we are.

“So, while we did put a lot of work on tackling, and this is in no way to take anything away from Donie, I wouldn’t say anything we were doing was ground-breaking, we just kept working hard at it.”

At a coaching conference several years ago, Buckley revealed how in Croke Park he would make his way up to the press box long before throw-in and fix a wide lens camera in place to record matches – the view allowing him to see the entire expanse of the pitch. When the ball was up one end, he could see the positioning of players at the other, what they were doing, or more importantly, were not doing.

He was dividing the pitch up into corridors and zones long before it became the à la mode approach of trendsetting coaches.

“His training methods were very innovative,” adds Dillon. “He’d always bring something new to each session, linking it in with the previous session.”

Buckley is an insatiable consumer of American sports, always looking for new coaching variations. His methods have continued to evolve but he also reserves a place for some old-school robustness.

“He wasn’t a great man for listening to the strength and conditioning coaches about how much we should be doing,” smiles Higgins.

“Most S&C coaches would try rate a session out of 10, with 10 the max. They might look to keep it at six or seven, but that wouldn’t pop through Donie’s head at all, it was always a nine or a 10.”

Some 45 minutes in, it wouldn’t be unusual for Buckley to tell the group the warm-up had ended and the session was about to commence. Nor would it be uncommon for a 60 second tackling drill to be ongoing minutes later.

“Whereas others might be talking about load and examining how much you are training,” says former Monaghan defender Colin Walshe.

“Donie would be of the other mindset, if training was going well he’d nearly be reluctant to blow the whistle, he’d want to squeeze as much out of every session as he could. I really enjoyed his training, I enjoyed his approach to the game.”

Walshe can still hear Buckley’s rat-a-tat-tat voice, the drills delivered with endless enthusiasm and passion.

“The travelling would take its toll on him, naturally,” recalls the former Monaghan captain. “But the minute he stepped on the grass he would bring incredible energy, that was one thing I could never get away from, his voice just never stopped for the full session. There was no going through the motions with him.”

It was similar during his time in Kerry, where a breather between drills was a pipe dream.

“It was all go, go, go, high intensity, none of this walking around having a break,” recalls O’Sullivan. “All the drills were very intense, you’d be finished one and the legs would be hanging off you, your lungs would be burning.

“They were all short, sharp and intense. You could see his stamp on the Mayo teams over the years, a staple of their success was that intensity and ability to turn teams over and hunt in packs.”

But there is also another side to his coaching. As he avoids media interviews, what we know of Buckley’s personality comes largely from the players he trained.

“When anybody asks me about Donie, the first thing I always say is what a lovely man he is,” says O’Sullivan. “He has great intuition if something is up with a player. He’d be aware if somebody was out of sorts.”

It was something Dillon noticed about him too. There would be occasions when Buckley would sidle over to a player for a quiet word, offering some advice or just checking if life was going okay.

“He has a unique skill set around communication, he’s a very warm individual,” adds Dillon. “He wasn’t just a coach on the field, but also a mentor off it.

“The best coaches always have the best interests of their players at heart. He had the emotional intelligence to know if something was wrong with a player. He could sense if something wasn’t right, it’s an innate skill that differentiates the good from the great.”

Dillon has kept in contact with Buckley, while over the years Higgins has travelled down to Clare to play golf with his former coach.

In late 2021, Buckley entertained the possibility of a third whirl in Kerry. He was included on a managerial ticket alongside Mickey Ned O’Sullivan, Stephen Stack, Dara Ó Cinnéide and Seamus Moynihan. But Kerry opted for O’Connor once more.

It remains something of a puzzle as to why it has never worked out for Buckley in Kerry. Perhaps his character and methods determined he couldn’t coexist in a management team fronted by O’Connor or Keane. Anecdotally, the Kerry players enjoyed his training and O’Sullivan feels a lack of autonomy might have been a contributing factor to his exits.

“In Monaghan he possibly had free rein with the coaching, possibly the same in Mayo, but that wouldn’t have been the case in Kerry,” he says. “You’d have different pockets where it would be Donie working in one pocket and you’d have another pocket where a different coach would be, everybody had their little pocket.”

When the counties met during the league in 2019, Mayo made a presentation to Buckley, then involved with Kerry, in recognition of his contribution to the green and red. But it turns out his work with Mayo wasn’t finished. On Saturday, in his home county, Buckley will be a significant figure in the away dressingroom once again. The Kerry door closed on him twice, but Mayo’s remained open. It’s complex, after all.

“I think it’s a natural fit for him with this current Mayo team,” says Dillon. “It’s great for the young players to have Donie influencing their development, like he did with us.”

Back to the future.

“I was surprised Donie came back,” says Higgins. “But he obviously had a clear reason in his head why he was returning to the group, he doesn’t do things for the sake of it.”

Sometimes home is where you make it.