Naomh Padraig's Drew McKinney back on board and back on form

Drew McKinney played his first competitive game in over a year for Naomh Padraig Uisce Chaoin in  Saturday evening’s first-round Junior A Championship win over Urris.

The former county minor kicked two points in a commanding performance at centre half-back, in the 4-10 to 2-3 win over Inishowen rivals in Ture.

“It is my first full 60 minutes of football since I injured my cruciate this time last year and I’m happy to have got through the game no bother,” he said afterwards.

McKinney was also delighted to get the championship up and running with the win ahead of Naomh Padraig’s games to come against St Eunans and Naomh Conaill.     

 “We’ve put a lot of work in for the last couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ve really been looking forward to the championship and getting ready for it over the last four weeks. Because we had a lot of players out through injury and for other reasons at the start of the year and our goal was to finish mid-table in the league.

“With a lot of fellas expected back from injury in the middle of the summer, the goal was to give the championship a good run.

Naomh Padraig entered the championship in good stead having secured promotion to Division 2 of the All-County Football League.

“Obviously after the win over Burt in the playoff and being promoted to Division 2 for the first time has been a real bonus,” McKinney added. “The focus now is on the championship.

“We’ve a couple of big games coming up over the next few weeks against St Eunans and Naomh Conaill. They are two teams you don't know what to expect because you don’t know what sort of team they will have on the day. We’ve St Eunans next at home here next weekend and then we have Naomh Conaill, the following weekend away in Glenties. We are going to have to be ready for those challenges and we are going to have a hectic six weeks if we are to reach the county final.”