Mac's View: Good weekend for Donegal Ladies and hurlers

This week I want to start with congratulations to the Donegal Ladies and hurlers on their successes at the weekend. The Ladies under James Daly and Roisin Rodgers lifted the League Division 2 title with a great win over Cavan in St Tiernach’s Park, Clones on Saturday. In difficult conditions they were convincing winners, especially as they had lost out to Cavan in Ballyshannon earlier in the league. Hopefully this will give them a big boost going into the championship in the coming weeks.

Congratulations are also in order for Mickey McCann and the Donegal hurlers who had a big win over Wicklow in O’Donnell Park, Letterkenny in the first round of the Christy Ring Cup. They turned around the result from the League final in final style.

They have a difficult assignment this week in the second round with a long trip to Austin Stack Park, Tralee on Sunday. They had a notable success of Kerry in Letterkenny last year in the league but this will be a really good test for them

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Sunday’s opening game in the Ulster Senior Championship in the Athletic Grounds, Armagh was much closer than many people thought it would be. Fair play to Tyrone, they put it up to Armagh and they even had the chance to win the game before it went to extra-time.

But that physicality that Armagh have, it made a difference in the end despite having to play with 14 men for all of the extra-time. 

But you have to say that Armagh are playing as well as they have done in the past. They still seem to have more in them, but that has been something that has been said about them for a long time now.

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Looking at the game on Sunday, you would have to say that Donegal are a big ahead of them while not wanting to blow our horn too much. We do have it over Armagh in recent times and that counts.

But lest we forget, we have a tough match coming up against Down in O’Donnell Park, Letterkenny on Sunday week and our focus should be solely on that. Down, although they were operating in Division 3 this year, always give us a good test. They are a different breed of footballers; they will always be cocky and arrogant, but arrogant in a good way.

I remember well when they came on the scene in 1960 and I got to watch them as a young fella against Kerry. They were a team that came from nowhere but they had some fine footballers, particularly in the forward line. A half-forward line of Sean O’Neill, James McCartin and Paddy Doherty was special. They had Brian Morgan inside and Joe Lennon at midfield, while small for a midfielder, was very creative. Then you had Dan McCartan, a rock at centre half-back and a young Leo Murphy at full-back.

The big talking point ahead of the game against Down is tickets, which are like gold dust. It’s a pity we don’t have MacCumhaill Park, especially with the big number of people who are coming out to see Donegal at present. But we have to get on with it. We have to go out and do the business and get Donegal to an Ulster semi-final.

The panel returned from their training camp last weekend and I’m sure Jim McGuinness used the time wisely. We have a fine panel now with great strength between the two ‘50s’. There is a big prize out there and that will be the focus.

Winning three Ulsters in-a-row would be number one, something even Jim hasn’t done before.

On the home front in the league there were big wins for Glenswilly against Naomh Conaill and Glenfin against MacCumhaill’s. I see ‘Steady Eddie’, Frank McGlynn, is still lining out for Glenfin and that was a good result.

The weather took its toll again last weekend. Here in Bundoran we called off underage games on Saturday to try and get our game with Burt on but it wasn’t to be. We have to travel to Buncrana this weekend and it raises another bugbear of mine, this need to split the county, especially with the price of petrol and diesel at present. We have to take a serious look at the leagues and get more local games.

Good luck this weekend to our minors, who begin their Ulster Championship campaign with a trip to Kingspan Breffni Park, Cavan on Saturday.

Our U-20s are wished well in their Ulster semi-final which will take place on Wednesday of next week. By the time you read this we will know our opponents, but the important thing is we will have a home game, so hopefully people will come out and support this talented young side.

Finally, this week, my condolences to the Brennan family, Gaoth Dobhair on the death of Máire Brennan. She was a wonderful talent, a breathtaking voice as well as being a beautiful Donegal person. With her family, she put Donegal on the map; we couldn’t have had a better ambassador. It is a sad time for the Brennan family and for all in Donegal. May she rest in peace.

Brian McEniff was in conversation with Peter Campbell