Jim McGuinness says Donegal only trained once a week during their ill-fated Allianz Football League campaign because he wanted to keep the players fresh for their All-Ireland defence.

However, the Donegal boss has admitted for the first time that relegation to Division 2 was, indeed, a major disappointment to him and his players. The All-Ireland champions surrendered their top-flight status after conceding a late equalising point to Dublin's Paul Mannion in Ballybofey last month.

"After winning the All-Ireland, we did make a management decision not to overcook the players," McGuinness is quoted as saying in the Irish Sun.

"We didn't push them hard in pre-season and it's been well-documented we train at a very high-intensity level for Championship football. I don't believe that it's sustainable - the level we worked at over the summer - to be used over a year.

"So that was the reason we took the management decision we did. We didn't want to burn them out and had done the exact same thing last year. We trained one night a week for the last five of six weeks of the league with the aim to have them very fresh for the championship.

"We had to win our last game again, but unfortunately we were caught in the last minute. We were very disappointed we didn't stay in the division. We didn't, though, approach the league with a win-at-all-costs attitude. That's the attitude best served with this group of players come the summer." Tweet

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