John O’Malley hoping to make it lucky number seven

John O’Malley has been on the right side of many Naomh Conaill wins in the Donegal SFC and he’s hopeful for another this Sunday.

The forward has featured in six of their seven Dr Maguire triumphs, starting with 2010 and coming as recently as 2023, while he has also been on the end of heartbreak in the decider.

“I’ve been lucky enough that we’ve been here a lot of years so it’s great to be back there again.

“It’s not a great place to be when you lose. We lost back-to-back in 2017 and 2018, but we came back in 2019 and won, which was big for us.

“It’s a tough place to be losing a county final. It’s tough getting there, but you want to make the most of it when you get to that stage.”

An extra emphasis went into this year, given that last season’s campaign ended at the quarter-final stage, the first time the Glenties men were absent from the final since 2016.

They lost out to eventual winners St Eunan’s, but they have bounced back this year.

“We were disappointed with the way last year went in getting to the quarter finals, and this year was really important to us to get back to this and back to being competitive.

“We targeted this so we’re delighted to get back to the final.”

Naomh Conaill will renew acquaintances with Gaoth Dobhair in the final, the side they beat in 2023 and 2019, although the Magheragallon men got one over them in 2018.

But they haven’t had an easy way to the final, coming from behind in all their knockout games against Killybegs, Termon and Four Masters in the semi-final as they were given a scare in that game.

Three down in extra-time, a Kevin McGettigan goal got them going again and they kicked on in the final ten minute period.

But after their round three match against Downings was postponed a week, it meant they were out five weeks in a row up until the semi-final, but they got a welcome weekend off to prepare for Sunday’s showdown.

“It went right down to the wire as we expected with Four Masters. We knew it would take that to get past them. They’re a serious side and their underage success speaks for itself but we knew we had as good a chance as them to get through and thankfully we came out in the right side of it.

“The timing of the goal was massive and it wasn’t looking good before it. Kevin was in and out of the game a couple of times with a bloody nose, but that’s the kind of fella he is, and he popped up at the right time and thankfully we kicked on from there.

“We were out five weeks in a row. Look, you want to be playing football week on week, but thankfully we got the two-week buffer to get the bodies right.”