Mac's View: Donegal U-20s were completely disrespected

I begin this week with disappointment on two counts. First of all it was disappointing to see our U-20 footballers go out of the championship.

In fairness, they were beaten by a very good Derry side and hopefully our neighbours will now go on and win the All-Ireland.

I always like to see the team that beats you in the championship go on and do well. It somewhat eases the disappointment.

At least you can say at least you were beaten by the Ulster or All-Ireland champions.

The big concern about this defeat was that we only scored five points. Five points is never going to be enough to win a game, never mind an Ulster championship game.

Nevertheless, the defeat is a huge disappointment for the manager Leo McLoone, the players and his management team of Eamon McGee, Colm Anthony McFadden and Owenie McGarvey.

They all put in a big effort over the last couple of months and to have their season ended after just two games is disappointing.

The other source of my second disappointment is how the game was brought forward to Saturday, five days ahead of the scheduled date. This was done at the request of Derry.

I read where Leo McLoone expressed his disappointment at the decision and the short notice Donegal received of the change of date. It is easy to understand Leo’s disappointment given that he would have made all his plans for a Wednesday night game.

And then to be informed on Tuesday that the game had been rescheduled for the following Saturday, four days ahead of the date he and his players had been planning towards.

In fairness to Leo he was not using the change as an excuse for the defeat and he readily admitted Derry were the better team.

But there is no getting away from it. It was shabby treatment by the Ulster Council of the players and management. And to add insult to injury they tossed for a choice of venue and Derry won the toss.

Apparently Healy Park, the original venue of choice, was not available on Saturday. If that was the case and no other suitable venue was to be found Donegal should have received home advantage.

My understanding of the rules governing change of dates is the change can only be made if the opposing county agrees to the change. On this occasion it was up to Donegal to agree or disagree.

I’m not sure if Donegal agreed or not. But what I do know is the decision was very disrespectful and unfair to the entire Donegal U-20 set-up.

And it was disrespectful to the competition too and no way to treat people.

No shows

We had a worrying situation here in the county at the weekend too where two senior clubs, Bundoran and St Michael, failed to fulfil fixtures in the All-County League.

I know in my own club’s case, here in Bundoran, they simply did not have a team. I was there on Sunday morning when the team was gathering. And they did not have the numbers.

I don’t know what the situation was with St Michael’s but the Easter weekend, which is a big holiday weekend in the town, it is impossible to get a team out.

Shocks

The provincial championships got up and running with a couple big shocks at the weekend. The big surprise was New York’s win over Leitrim, in Gaelic Park, in New York, in the Connacht championship.

Clare’s narrow win over Cork may not have been on the same level on the Richter Scale, but it was a shock nonetheless.

A big congratulations to Mark McHugh on Roscommon’s win over Mayo, in Castlebar. Mark’s fingerprints were all over Roscommon’s defensive play on how they closed down the Mayo attack.

Brian McEniff was in conversation with Tom Comack.