Caolan McColgan ‘proud’ MOTM recipient for Donegal

Caolan McColgan admitted it was a proud afternoon for him as he not only helped Donegal pick up the win over Kerry, but  the Naomh Padraig, Muff clubman also secured the Man of the Match award in the process. 

The Kingdom had led by six at one stage on a difference of 1-6 to 0-3, But Paddy Carr’s men showed real bottle to dig in and dig out two very impressive NFL points. McColgan kicked three of his side’s points to help secure a dramatic 0-13 to 1-9 victory in Ballybofey.

“It was good to get over the line in the first game,” he said. “It was nip and tuck the whole way through, we knew we were in it the whole way and we knew we were the better team”. 

Dara Moynihan looked like he’d secured Jack O’Connor’s men a share of the spoils when he levelled matters up moving into injury time. But four minutes into the red Patrick McBrearty stepped up, like only he does, to boot a dramatic winner. 

“As soon as Paddy got that ball in his hands we knew it was over the bar,” said McColgan. “He does that every game, even in training you see it too. We push on now to next Sunday and hopefully we can keep building up the points”. 

On his own NFL debut exploits, McColgan modestly tried to shrug off that emphatic impact. 

“I had the confidence to kick on after the first one. I might have got a wee bit lucky on one of them, but you take everything you can get. It was a really enjoyable debut and to win the Man of the Match was a real honour”. 

McColgan (20) is a second year Business Studies student at Ulster University in Belfast. And he admits a boyhood dream of sorts was realised in MacCumhaill Par. 

“All I ever wanted to do was play for Donegal, watching guys like Ryan McHugh and Paddy McBrearty, it’s a real honour now sharing the field with them. I was involved a wee bit last year. But hopefully I’ve got to grips with it and this year I just want to push in and make a name for myself.