Some soft-tissue injury concerns for Donegal boss Jim McGuinness ahead of Armagh 

Jim McGuinness says Daire Ó Baoill’s recovery from a hand injury will likely take three to four weeks to clear up. 

The Donegal manager explained that he and his medical team are also having to be extra careful with soft-tissue complaints as the wet opening to 2026 has left training pitches much muckier than usual. 

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Ó Baoill missed Donegal’s league win over Mayo at the weekend and McGuinness says it’s unfortunate for the Gaoth Dobhair man, who had found real form early on in the opening rounds of the NFL. 

“He's picked up a hand injury so he's probably going to be three or four weeks,” McGuinness explained. 

“Listen, it's not the end of the world in the sense that he's had a really good start to the campaign.

“It's not going to restrict him from a conditioning point of view or a running point of view. 

“I know he’'d have wanted to be out there again against Mayo but, ultimately, if we get him back in a couple of weeks, hopefully he'll come back fresher.

“I spoke to him about that. Last year, even the year before, he played an awful lot of football in the league. 

“But he was in a really good spot. We need to now make sure we get him back to that spot and, hopefully, at the end of the league, he'll be nice and fresh coming into the championship”. 

Naomh Conaill’s Ciaran Gallagher was the other notable absentee from the weekend’s win in Letterkenny. 

The boss explained that Gallagher picked up a soft-tissue injury midweek at training and added that a number of others were also feeling the sapping effects of what are, at this time, really soft training pitches. 

“Ciaran Gallagher missed out (against Mayo).  Listen, the pitches are really, really poor at the moment and really, really soft.

“We're getting soft tissue injuries. We picked up another couple of soft-tissue injuries during the warm-up in Letterkenny simply because the ground is so soft.

“But every manager's got that problem at the moment. We're trying to look for solutions and trying to get out on the pitch on the right nights. 

“It's very, very difficult at the moment to have a decent surface. So I think that's playing into the fact that we're picking up those niggles here and there”.

Meanwhile, with Armagh languishing sixth in the table and joint second from bottom, McGuinness expects Kieran McGeeney’s side to arm themselves with the kitchen sink on Sunday at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds. 

Add in the fact that the warring pair like to tear strips off each other at the best of times means sparks will inevitably fly. 

“You're not going to get anything easy up there, that's for sure,” McGuinness said on that.  

“I don't know how many games we've played now in the last number of years but it's always been a point or a draw.

“So that's what we'll be planning for during the week, That's what we'll be expecting. Hopefully, we can bring a good level. 

“Armagh, losing to Roscommon, that adds another dimension to that game for sure”.