Donegal have to fight to retain their Division 1 status - Emer Gallagher

Emer Gallagher is adamant Donegal don’t want to drop down to the second tier in the NFL.

The Termon girl says that if Donegal want to remain challenging at the top table in championship, then those ambitions will be best served playing Division 1 football. 

Maxi Curran’s team lost their fourth straight game on the bounce on Sunday when Waterford came to Letterkenny and downed their hosts by 2-9 to 0-7. 

And even though Donegal are fielding what is very much an experimental and young outfit in this league campaign, Gallagher says with three games left to go, now is the time to stand up and be counted. Because if they don’t, then they will certainly slip through the relegation trapdoor 

“We are in a very tricky spot right now,” she said. “Relegation wasn’t something we were even thinking about at the start of this year. We go to Cork next weekend now we have to try to put some points on the board. 

“It’s going to be tough. It’s a long journey down there but look at Waterford, they came all the way up here and won. We have no other option but to treat the next three games as ‘must wins’. Forget about performances, we need to dig in and dig out some points. We’ll do everything that we can to achieve that. 

“We can’t forget how hard Donegal battled over the years to get to Division 1 so we don’t want to let standards slip. Playing against the top sides in the country in the league, that’ll always serve you best when it comes to championship”.  

The Termon girl, stand in skipper in place of the absent Niamh McLaughlin, admits that Donegal just never got up to the pitch of the game against Waterford.

She explained: “The general consensus after Waterford was one of huge disappointment. We’d really high hopes going into the game. We’d worked really hard this past fortnight on how to prepare for what they were going to bring. 

“It just seemed a bit flat at times. There were parts of our play that were encouraging but the way we let them in for both their goals really wasn’t good enough. We also had chances to hit the net but we didn’t take them. 

“Waterford just seemed to be able to punish us whenever they progressed forward. We wanted to really go for it - play with no fear. We did commit and push up on their kickouts. But the other side of that was when the ball went over our heads it put us under huge pressure to get back up the pitch. 

“It was a chance we had to take. We were very aware going into the game that we needed to put points on the board. We just needed to be that little more clinical ourselves at the other end of the pitch. It’s just disappointing looking back on it”.