Danny O’Donnell and Naomh Muire content to get promotion hopes back on track

Danny O’Donnell was happy to get back to winning ways on Sunday against St Naul’s at the Banks at the weekend.

The Naomh Muire manager’s side had suffered their first defeat of the league campaign in the previous outing against Dungloe at Rosses Park seven days earlier.

But a 0-18 to 0-10 win over the Mountcharles lads means the Lower Rosses outfit are up to third in the Division 2 standings, a point behind second-placed Dungloe and just two adrift of pace-setters Aodh Ruadh.

“We asked the boys to put in a big shift after losing last weekend to Dungloe,” said O’Donnell in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s eight-point win over St Naul’s.

“We were obviously disappointed with the performance in Dungloe and the fact that we conceded five goals.

“We needed to react to that, and thankfully we kept a clean sheet today. I thought we did well in the tackle and turned the ball over a number of times.”

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St Naul’s played with the strong wind at their backs, and thanks to the two-point kicking of Stephen Griffin, they led 0-10 to 0-2 at half-time.

“St Naul’s scored a number of two-pointers in the first half and gave themselves an eight-point cushion at the break.

“It took a while to claw that lead back, but conditions were tough out there with a strong breeze blowing down the field.

“We scored two points in the first half and St Naul’s didn’t score at all in the second half, which is an indication of how strong the breeze was.

“The second half was about being patient and dominating the ball. I thought we did that well. We got the right men on the ball in the right places, scored a few two-pointers, and gradually clawed our way back into the game.”

With just one defeat in eight outings, O’Donnell is happy with how the season has gone so far.

“We haven’t set any targets for the league and we are just taking it one game at a time”.

The season has gone well so far with just one defeat. We have five games left to play, and three of them are at home here in the Banks.

“So, we are in a good place. But there are a lot of good teams in the division. Dungloe and Aodh are ahead of us at the minute.

“And there are teams like Ardara and Killybegs we still have to play. They are both coming to the Banks, and there are plenty of league points to play for.We will continue to play and we’ll see where it takes us.”