Jim McGuinness has no regrets about walking away from his role as Donegal senior football manager and says that the break from gaelic football has been 'refreshing'.

The 2012 All-Ireland winning manager's time is now taken up with his job as a first team sports psychologist with Celtic and, in conversation with Brendan O'Connor on Today with Sean O'Rourke, he revealed: "Things are going really well.

"We [Celtic] are still in the hunt for the treble, which has only ever been done twice.

"This is the first time I have been away from Gaelic football. At the moment to be honest I don't miss it. I have put so much into the last four years, it's nice to be taking a step back .

"This is the first time since I have been 19 years of age that I have had that step back, and it has been refreshing."

Explaining the reasons behind his decision to step down in the aftermath of last year's All-Ireland final defeat to Kerry he added: "There is only so long you can drive people. You need people to drive themselves.

"It wasn't just about taking a football team and doing the best you could do with the team. I wanted it to be a bit more than that.

"I wanted it to be a life experience for the people that were involved.

"Obviously we wanted to win, we wanted to win more than anything in the world, but we wanted to give the best account of ourselves as possible.

"If you do that and you push yourself to the limit and you get the most out of yourself, you have to be happy with the result. If it's a win, or a loss, or a draw, that's what is involved in the process.

"There's nothing wrong with second place if the other team is better than you. All you have got to do then is revaluate where you are at, look at your weaknesses and see can you push on.

"That's what we did between 2011 and 2012. Dublin were better than us and we weren't developed to the level that we were good enough to win an All-Ireland."

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