Paddy Bradley lifts lid on Paddy Carr’s resignation and why he and Aidan O’Rourke took over Donegal

Lee Costello

“First and foremost our loyalty was with Paddy.”

Paddy Bradley and Aidan O’Rourke found themselves in the tricky situation of taking over the role as Donegal manager in the middle of the season.

Paddy Carr was initially the manager, while Bradley and O’Rourke were brought in as part of the coaching team, but things went downhill fast.

The players were not responding to Carr’s style of management and wanted him to resign from the role, and have the Derry and Armagh legend take his place.

Speaking on the latest episode of the GAA Hour, thanks to AIB #TheToughest, Bradley reveals they would never have taken on the role, if Carr didn’t want them too.

“First and foremost our loyalty was with Paddy, because he was the manager of the team, and it was him that brought Aidan and myself in, but Paddy was very keen for us to stay on.

“The players at the stage had expressed an interest that we would still be involved and the only way we would do that is with Paddy’s approval, and he wanted us to stay on.

“It was a difficult situation and a difficult few weeks, but in fairness to the players, we knew at that stage that we were going to be relegated and that was a difficult period, but we circled the wagon pretty well.”

Despite turning things around with victories against Clare and Monaghan, and a promising performance against the Ulster champions Derry, things ended on a sour note with defeat to Tyrone.

“We obviously had a poor result against Down in the Ulster championship, and we were very disappointed in that, but I thought we came back well, and our worst performance of the year probably ended up against Tyrone.

“It was just one of those nights where nothing went right. I actually felt that we were in a decent enough position at half time, only three or four points down, playing with a big wind, we butchered a couple of opportunities at the start of the second half, and the heads dropped.

“It was a disappointing end to the season, but I was really really glad that I got involved there, there’s no such thing as a bad experience in football, you’re learning the whole time.

A place in the All-Ireland Final officially up for grabs! Former Derry football star, Paddy Bradley pictured today ahead of the 2023 GAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Semi-Final which takes place this Sunday in Croke Park.

“For me there was plenty of lows, and there was highs, and as bad as things in football go, there never as bad as people make it out to be, and whenever you’re going well, and you had the highs of beating Monaghan for example, you’re never really going as well as people were saying either – you’re not exactly the world beaters that people think you are.”

“So it was a bit of a mixed bag, but as I said to you, I do think that Donegal football isn’t in that bad a place, especially when they get all their players back.”