Little time for Donegal to reflect as Down tangle immediately looms on horizon 

Donegal manager Luke Barrett has very little time to assess his team’s performance from Wednesday night's opening round Ulster MFC win  over Fermanagh.

Barrett takes his team to Newry on Sunday in the second  of group games where they face Down, in Pairc Esler.

The game is the curtain-raiser to the senior championship quarter-final meeting of Donegal and Down. This year's minor championship is the first season of the new group format of the competition.

 Donegal are in alongside Fermanagh, Down, Derry and Monaghan with each team playing each other once. At the end of the league format the top four teams in the group qualify for the quarter finals.

Because of that, Wednesday night’s win over Fermanagh might well be enough to already  see Donegal through to the last eight.  A victory over Down this Sunday would definitely ensure a place in the knockout stages.  

Barrett explained: “It is a very quick turnaround but if  we get the win in Down we are through to the quarter final. We can reassess and there are a couple of boys complaining of being tired as well.

“It is a different kind of championship in that boys are going to school and how you have to prepare for it. But we are going to have to make the most and hopefully get a positive result on Sunday.”

Reflecting on Wednesday’s five point win over Fermanagh, Barrett was happy with the result but far from happy with the performance.   

“We are very disappointed with the performance as a group. We  set very high standards for ourselves and we went nowhere reaching those standards there.

“We were passive when we didn’t have the ball and up front we were taking pot shots on. In the first half, our movement was excellent and some of our scores were excellent”.

The Milford club man struggled to come up with answers as to why his charges’ efforts dipped after the changeover. 

“Maybe we trained too hard last week. Fermanagh had a game on Saturday, albeit it did not go well for them. Nevertheless, they still had played a championship game and they had  a championship feel about them. And they were at the pitch of the game from very early.

“In fairness to them they brought a lot of energy in their performance and their goal was a bit opportunistic. We had dominated but the goal gave them life and they stayed in the game after that.

“They played with 15 men behind the ball and tried to frustrate us and hit us on the break  and it worked for them. We were prepared for that and we knew it was coming and I’m disappointed with the way we handled it. 

“We played a lot of football through the middle and we were blocked down three times and took a few silly shots. All that gave them  energy and you could see that from them and they played very well and fair play to them.

“I expected we would have been a superior team and overall we were the better team.” 

On a positive note there were aspects of Donegal’s game and play that pleased the manager. 

“I thought some of our tackling was very good and some of our forward movement was excellent, we just didn’t see enough of it.”