Promotion still in Donegal’s hands but improvements have to be made - Mickey McCann

Mickey McCann said Donegal were second best on the day against Wicklow but insisted they simply have to get their conversion ratio up in front of the posts. 

Donegal went into the day top of Division 3 of the NHL and looking to secure both a spot in the final as well as promotion back to the second tier. 

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But the Garden County pulled the rug, for now at least, on those ambitions as McCann and his players lick their wounds before turning attention to what is now a huge encounter away to Roscommon in two weeks’ time. 

Reflecting back on their 0-21 to 0-14 loss at O’Donnell Park, McCann says Donegal lost out to the better team on the day. 

Still, he was right to feel annoyed as his team again misfired in front of the posts with 16 wides accumulated over the course of the 70 minutes. 

They clocked 17 in their previous home win over Armagh but against quality opposition, that lethargy in front of the posts finally cost them when the chips were really down at the weekend. 

“The better team won and they wanted it more on the day,” said McCann. “We thought we were ready for it, but we were really poor in the first-half. 

“In the second-half, we shot ourselves out of it with something like 16 wides today again from play. We also dropped two short, which is just a killer. 

“They are momentum swings as the ball just ends up going down the other side and over the crossbar. 

“Our second-half conversion rate was thirty three percent, which again was really poor. But Wicklow were that bit more physical. They were really up for it. 

“It was ‘do-or-die’ for them. Thankfully, we have another shot at it. Look, I’ve no real complaints outside of what I just outlined. The better team won and we have a lot to fix”. 

McCann says Donegal came into Sunday’s tangle in Letterkenny with a huge incentive dangled in front of them. 

Chasing what would have been a fifth straight victory, the hosts were under no illusions that Wicklow represented a serious step up in class to anything that had gone before. 

“We’d have liked to put it to bed today and got promotion. But we have Roscommon now and we have to win that. That won’t be easy.

“We have to fix these scoring opportunities. It was the same against Armagh with something like 17 wides. We have to get our conversion rate up, or we’re going to lose these big games.

“Away to Louth last time out, we were really good. We hit 3-20 down to 14 men. But we’d a poor start today in front of the posts.   

“We’d only one free in the first-half where they’d six or seven scoreable ones. And Padraig Doyle was really on it”.

He added: “It’s still in our own hands and that’s the way you want it to be. But we have to learn from it. We have two big weeks in front of us now. 

“The big disappointment is if we topped the group, we’d have had a home league final. But the main thing now is to get promotion with the right result in Dr Hyde Park”.