Daniel Warnock looking forward to county  final day with Aodh Ruadh

Aodh Ruadh captain, Daniel Warnock, was born in 1998 and that was the year Michael ‘Sticky’ Ward was picking up the man of the match in the Ballyshannon side’s senior win over Naomh Columba.

On Sunday next Warnock will lead out Aodh Ruadh in the Senior B final against Gaoth Dobhair and Ward will wear the No 14 jersey, 25 years on.

But overall, the Aodh Ruadh side is a young development team who have a good mix of youth and experience.

“I’m only 25 but I’m one of the older guys on the team. A lot of them are very young. But then you have boys like Sticky (Michael Ward) and Luke Carr. Them boys have serious experience at senior level.

“They’re driving the whole thing on really,” said Warnock.

“We have a great group in the 20-24 age group and they have a great future ahead of them.”

Aodh Ruadh will go into the final as underdogs, especially after they lost out to their final opponents when they met in the group stage in Ballyshannon.

“A final is a final, but we’re under no illusions. We lost to them in Ballyshannon in the championship and we might not even have as strong a team for the final as we had that day in Munday’s Field.

“But look, it’s great to be in the final. Anything can happen on any given day,” says Warnock.

Aodh Ruadh overcame St Eunan’s in the quarter-final in Convoy and then got over the line with a late Damian Weber goal against Kilcar in the semi-final in MacCumhaill Park. Those were some of their better performances.

“The Eunan’s game more than against Kilcar,” says Warnock. “We would have been disappointed with our performances against Kilcar, for large parts of that game anyway. Kilcar were disappointed that they didn’t win that game. We would have been happy with our performance against St Eunan’s.”

Getting to final is good for our player development - Aodh Ruadh's Brian Gillespie

Gillespie says his team have progressed slowly and it is good for the club and the young players to experience the biggest day of the year for club football in the county

Aodh Ruadh had goal chances against Kilcar, which they didn’t take. “If that happens against Gaoth Dobhair and we don’t take them, we’ll be blown away. We have to learn.”

The Aodh Ruadh captain is looking forward to playing in front of a big crowd, something which maybe only veterans Michael Ward and Luke Carr have experienced.

“We have played on Intermediate final day but this is totally a step up. This is senior final day, the biggest day in Donegal club football and it is great to be involved in it,” said Warnock, who had great praise for Michael ‘Sticky’ Ward. “He’s unbelievable, great to have around.”