St Michael's look for the magic number for survival

St Michael’s have had a change in management this year but a good start to the league has helped them settle as they push for a comfortable finish in Division 1.

The side from the Bridge made the Donegal SFC semi-final last season but joint-managers Raymond McLaughlin and Cathal Sweeney stepped away from the position in the off-season.

That left it to former county players and current St Michael’s players Daniel McLaughlin and Martin McElhinney to step up and take the reins as joint-managers.

“Nowadays it can be hard to get a manager and we were lucky enough to get Cathal and Raymond for the last couple of years,” Daniel McLaughlin told DonegalLive.

“The two boys put in a big shift for us, but with different things on, they stepped away.

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“So the club came to Martin and me, the players were happy enough with it and it has been going well so far, there’s a long year to go but we’re enjoying it so far.

“It’s different trying to play and manage but the two of us are enjoying it and we haven’t had too many disagreements on team selections, when we get back to the full complement it might give us a bit of a headache but things are going well at the minute and we have no complaints.

We have a good backroom team there with the likes of Danny Langan and Stephen Black so we let them boys take the reins on the side of the field and make the calls, we try to set it up as best as we can before the game but them boys are around the block long enough to decide on who to bring on or what tweaks to do.”

The Dunfanaghy men were celebrating at full-time on their home patch on Sunday after a 1-14 to 0-14 win over Glenswilly, in which they came from 0-11 to 0-1 down at the break with a heavy breeze in their favour for the second half.

“It was an important two points for us,” McLaughlin added, who kicked 0-8 from frees in the second half, three from outside the arc.

“We were ten down at half-time, but with the new rules, the two pointers made it just the five kicks of the ball, and with that breeze, we knew we had the firepower to see us over the line.

“If it was this time last year, then you’re thinking you’ll need goals to come back into it but if you can get the two pointers and if the other side are a bit ill-disciplined, then you get those frees taken forward, which we got a few of luckily enough.

“Glenswilly are a young side and they really put it up to us, they put the squeeze on us really hard and even against the breeze, so it was a really hard game that could have gone either way.”

That puts them on seven points in Division 1 as they sit in eighth place of thirteen.

They are now five clear of Malin in the automatic relegation spot and three clear of Buncrana in the play-off, and avoiding that spot is where McLaughlin and co. are looking to do first and foremost.

“We were looking at it and wondering how many points it will be to get that magic number to stay safe, but it changes week on week. We have seven points now with five games to go, so we’re in a good enough position.

“We have a week off and then go to MacCumhaills who beat Glenfin so that’ll be a big game for us, if we can win that and get to nine then we’ll be in a good position for the rest of the league but it’s all about getting to that magic number and getting safe.”