Injury blow for Donegal ahead of Mayo as in-form Ó Baoill set for sideline spell  

Daire Ó Baoill has picked up a hand injury that will rule him out of action for the next number of weeks. 

The Gaoth Dobhair man has been excellent for Donegal to date and grabbed 1-2 in the side’s recent win over Kerry in Ballyshannon. 

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Ó Baoill’s left hand is currently in a protective plaster and Jim McGuinness will have to plan for the visit of Mayo to Letterkenny on Sunday without him. 

How many other NFL contests Ó Baoill will miss isn’t clear at the moment and the manager will no doubt shed some more light on all of that after the weekend’s encounter at O’Donnell Park. 

In what is a top-of-the-table clash, both Donegal and Mayo will go into Sunday’s encounter knowing a win for either side as good as secures top-flight status for next season. 

“There is serious energy with Mayo right now,” McGuinness said on Any Moran’s team. “The belief they have from the start they’ve made makes them a very dangerous animal. 

“They have their two big midfielders, but they have a midfielder at ten and at 14 as well. They have a lot of big and mobile players.

"Aidan O’Shea is playing really well. Jack Carney and Jordan Flynn are in that same vein. So they have a lot of size and physicality. 

“We’ll have to take a good look at all of that now and get ready for the challenge that’s in front of us”.

Meanwhile, McGuinness says the inclusion of Michael Murphy and Oisin Gallen in the squad for the win over Kerry was a timely boost and that the two-week break will have allowed the pair to get further traction under their belts. 

“The S&C part is so important; chatting and liaising with the medical team is a big part of that,” he explained.  

“Because the reality is they only come back to us when they say they are ready. Of course, they are in the environment and there is some integration with all of that. 

“They get two or three sessions on the bounce and then it becomes a conversation with the lads. How are they feeling? 

“You could see they had a couple of really good weeks under their belt and they felt strong. More importantly, they didn’t feel there was any risk involved. 

“So we said we’d see how the game goes. And it worked out that we were able to get them in and the aim now is to build that over the course of the next number of weeks.

“And the two-week window aligns nicely with all of that”.