Tomas O Se has claimed that Jim McGuinness is irreplaceable.

The Glenties man stepped down last week after four hugely successful years in charge of Donegal, and Kerry legend O Se says it would be unrealistic for fans to expect another manager as good as him. Writing in the Irish Independent, O Se puts McGuinness in the same exalted company as Mick O'Dwyer, Kevin Heffernan and Brian Cody, and fears Donegal will "lapse" now that he's departed.

"He's going to be a desperately hard act to follow for whoever succeeds him. I suspect the natural thing for players will be to lapse. They trusted him so implicitly, for four or five years he has had a huge role to play in their lives.

"Who can honestly replicate that?" O Se asks.

"I went through five Kerry managers and I know for a fact that, unless there is total trust there, things will fall apart.

"McGuinness' strength was that he didn't seem to care about anything outside that dressing-room. Everybody was writing off Donegal this year, myself included. He didn't give a damn.

"But now is the time the leaders in that Donegal team need to step forward, they need to buy into the ideas of the next man. You won't get another Jim McGuinness. That would be impossible.

"He changed everything. He rewrote the book on Gaelic football. And our loss is Celtic's gain, no question. The man is fearless. He took on the big boys and won."

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