'We've dropped five points already and cannot afford to drop anymore' - Melaugh

It was with a sense of relief for Letterkenny Gaels manager Paul Melaugh who reflected on his side's draw with Burt after Sunday’s league clash in Hibernian Park. 

“We are happy to get out of here with a point. It was a draw but for some reason, I thought we were a point up in the closing second but it ended up a draw game. It was a tight shift.” said the Gael’s manager after his team's 1-8 to 1-8 draw. 

“Burt were missing a lot of boys away with the county senior hurling team and we were missing a few lads from last year. We are developing young players and they are bringing young players through.  

Letterkenny Gaels played with the aid of a strong wind and driving rain in the first half and led 0-5 to 0-0 at half-time.

But Burt came back strong and managed to seal a draw with both teams sharing the spoils.

“The feeling at half-time was that we had not done enough and scored enough in the first half," said Melaugh. 

“And the message at half-time was that we had to up our work rate and intensity if we were going to get anything out of the game.

“We knew Burt were going to hunt us down in packs in the second half and force us to play in our own half. 

“And that is how it turned out for a long period we could not get out of our own area. We were unsettled on the ball and we were not making the right decisions.

"We were turning into traffic rather than turning back into space. But we eventually settled into the game. We made a couple of substitutions and the fresh legs were vital at that time too. 

“We scored four times against the wind which showed great character which we lacked against Carndonagh and Moville. In those games once we went behind we kinda laid down and didn’t respond to their big scores. 

“Today it was different when Burt scored big scores. We stood up and were counted. We scored a goal and they responded, then we went back up the field and scored another couple of points

“It is our first point on the board which gets us up and running. We have dropped five points already and we cannot really afford to drop anymore if we want to be in the shakeup for promotion.”