Donegal and Jim McGuinness shift focus towards Kerry back at Croke Park

JIM MCGUINNESS has warned his Donegal side that there will have to be considerable improvement if they are to take Kerry’s scalp at Croke Park. 

The Tír Chonaill boss will go head-to-head with Jack O’Connor once again next Sunday with the NFL Division 1 title up for grabs. 

READ NEXT: Donegal stumble past Monaghan and into NFL Division 1 final 

And so much of the talk in the lead-in to that will train back on last July’s All-Ireland final where the Kingdom spectacularly took down the Ulster champions with ten points to spare. 

Donegal did what they needed to do at the weekend but the manager knows another gear will be required against the Sam Maguire and reigning Division 1 title holders.

“We have a lot to work on,” said McGuinness after. “We’ve seen what Kerry have been doing over the course of the last number of games. 

“What we did there in the first-half, that will be no good against Kerry at Croke Park. There are a lot of positives as well. 

“We have quite a few players to come back into the team, in the half-forward line, especially. Daire Ó Baoill and Ciaran Moore are on their way back, Shane O’Donnell came back in today. 

“Ciaran Thompson is working his way back from injury. Oisin Gallen and Michael Murphy have played sparingly as well. 

“So it’s actually great to be in a league final considering how little that group of lads have played. 

“That’s given others an opportunity so the hope is that will be even more beneficial down the line.

“But we’re in a league final now against the top team in the country, there is no doubt about that. It’s going to be a tough challenge but one we’ll look forward to”. 

Pressed on what Donegal delivered against Monaghan, the boss said: “Average. We’d be happy with some of it, not so much other parts of it. 

“We conceded three goals in the first-half. We weren’t at the pitch of it from a defensive standpoint.

“Monaghan got a lot of oxygen from their first-half efforts. They brought a lot of energy. We didn’t match that the way we should have. 

“We started the game well, got good pressure on the Monaghan kickout. So there were things we were happy with. 

“We were very good in front of the posts. But you have to also keep the score down at the other end and we didn’t do that very well at all”.