Dungloe looking to go one step further as they eye quarter-final spot

Dungloe hit all the right notes at the weekend to see them through to preliminary quarter-final this Saturday against Downings, but the men from the Rosses are not resting on their laurels just yet. 

Dessie Gallagher’s side seems to have hit form at just the right time as they finished just outside the top four spot in fifth position after recording four-point victories over Glenfin and Aodh Ruadh Ballyshannon, before clinching an impressive 2-14 to 0-6 point win over St Naul’s at the weekend. 

Their only blemish was an unfortunate one-point loss to St Michael’s in round 3 of the championship on a day when storms affected matches throughout the county. 

But regardless of where they finished in the championship table, county man Mark Curran stressed that the most important thing for his side was a home win against injury-stricken St Naul’s. 

“The most important thing for us about the St Naul’s game was that we get the win first and foremost before we started to worry about score difference or permutations, so all we could do was focus on ourselves and get the win, and thankfully we did that,” Curran told Donegal Live after the match 

It was a near-perfect performance for the men in red who rattled off scores with ease and would almost be disappointed not to score more goals in the process. 

But a victory in any capacity was the only thing on Curran’s mind, with the 2022 Intermediate champions aiming to push on this year in senior football and compete with the top teams in the county.  

“We were probably disappointed with a lot of aspects of our performance in the St Michael’s game two weeks ago, even though we only lost by a point, but we came back from that defeat and did two weeks of good training, we fixed a few things and I think it showed how much we improved against St Naul’s,” he said. 

“It was important for us as a club to try and put down a marker in the championship this season and follow on from our return to the senior championship last year.  

“We were the team that ended up getting relegated down to the intermediate championship a few years ago so we wanted to make a point of being the team that got us out of that situation, we did that, and for us at the start of the year we knew our aim was to hold our senior status and kick on as a club.” 

Curran and his Dungloe side now move on to Downings were they hope to go one step further from last year and advance to the quarter-final after losing out by one point to Gaoth Dobhair last season after putting in an impressive performance. 

And while Dungloe will enter this weekend’s tie as favourites, Curran will not be taking anything for granted. 

“I think at this stage of the competition there’s now nothing between the teams, we were in a preliminary quarter-final last year, so we know how hard it can be and we’ll just take it as it comes to us and hopefully get the win,” he said.