Donegal hit by Patrick McBrearty injury blow

Donegal have to plan for their crunch National Football League game on Sunday against Monaghan in Clones without captain Patrick McBrearty.

The Kilcar man was forced off midway through the second of Donegal’s game with Tyrone in Omagh with a hamstring injury. Speaking ahead of training on Tuesday night, Donegal manager, Paddy Carr, was pessimistic about his chances.

"He is being looked after by the medical people but at the moment it is highly unlikely that he will be available for Sunday unfortunately," Carr said. "He is the only one that went off with an injury. There are a few others that had knocks and bruises but they should be pretty much available for selection.”

Dealing with a big number of injuries has been the recurring theme for the Donegal management for all the games so far.

"We have a number of players who are continuing their rehabilitation," said Carr, who said he would be receiving medical assessments after training on Tuesday night. "We won't know if they will be in contention until after that. "They are all making progress but we have to rely heavily on the medical advice in that regard."

There was good news for the manager with the return to action of Oisin Gallen for DCU in the Sigerson Cup last week, kicking five points against University of Limerick.  "He did indeed, he came on and played half a game," Carr added. "There would be a concern there over his full match fitness but we would be hopeful that he will come into contention at this stage.”

With a break of two weeks between rounds two and three, Carr is thankful for the extra time given to his walking wounded.

"Whenever you have injury concerns, every day is a day further up the road," he said. "The nature of it is that  these lads have injuries carried over from last season and it  just requires time and specialist treatment. While we can give them the treatment, time is always a factor that you are racing against.

"It would be lovely to have a full selection because that was a factor in the Tyrone game, there is no doubt. Tyrone were at full strength while we were down half a dozen plus.

"That is still a concern going to Clones on Sunday but you are caught between the fact we are moving into the more juicy part of the league now.  Division 1 is panning out as most people would have predicted. There is only a hair's breadth between so many.  One team has full points and one team has no points and everyone else is concertinaed into the middle. Anyone can take points off another team so it's all to play for there.”

Seeing that it will take five or six points to survive in the top flight, Sunday’s game against Monaghan, who are rooted to the bottom of the table, has even more significance.

"This game will take on a life of its own because of that," Carr added. "Monaghan have a very proud record in terms of their survivability and their resilience. They have been in Division 1 for quite a while now and it's a credit to them.

"Everyone knows the consistency and value of competing against the best teams and essentially that should be an advantage going into championship; maybe not always in Ulster as teams have won from Division 2 and recently Division 3.

"But everyone knows that you learn so much more from playing the very best. That's why we took a fair few learning points from the game against Tyrone. There were a good few young lads who played that day who hadn't featured in anything like that before. They should, I do believe, be the better for it.”

The manager also said that something they took from the Tyrone game was the need to start better.

"The importance of a good start in games is becoming very evident now. Because teams can structure themselves, when they get ahead of you by a couple of points, they structure themselves in such a way that they squeeze any initiative out of you.  It is as much psychological as tactical.

"We've had to look at that and as I've said to the lads, you never have to recover from a good start. That was the position that Tyrone found themselves in.”

On Sunday next, Donegal are going to have to match Monaghan for hunger, says Carr.

"Very much so. It has the makings of a good tussle. We're coming into the stage of the league that if you can build any bit of momentum in terms of getting points on the board, it gives you that momentum looking into the not too distant future in terms of championship preparation.”

He was also hoping he would have some of his more experienced players back in contention for this contest.

"That would be nice. We can't confirm that at the moment and we do have to have caution.  We certainly are not rushing anyone back that is not match fit."