Mac's View: Great chance for Donegal as Dublin short old hands

After our game with Kerry was postponed at the weekend we will have our first outing in the Allianz National Football League this Saturday night in MacCumhaill Park with the Dubs and Dessie Farrell coming to the county.

After watching Dublin last weekend defeat Mayo in a very open game of football under the new rules, the one aspect that stood out is that this is a completely new Dublin team. There are very few of the old hands with Ciaran Kilkenny the only one of the old gang that started.

Despite that they looked a reasonable side but then you are always going to have good footballers with so many to pick from. Sean Bugler was the stand-out player in the forward line and he will have to be watched closely by Donegal on Saturday night.

Normally you would be expecting names like Rock, McCaffrey, Fenton, Mannion and McCarthy but this is a new Dublin era. It will be interesting to see if they have any of the All-Ireland club champions, Cuala, players on board the bus to Ballybofey.

It was a big pity that Donegal didn’t get the chance to have an outing. Their game against Kerry was called off on Saturday morning and I’m sure it was a decision that was made lightly. It is always best to get Kerry early in the league campaign and having to play that game now on what should have been a rest weekend means that Donegal will get no break until early March.

I’m on holiday this week in the sun but I’m hoping to get to see Donegal on the TV on Saturday night. As far as I gather Jim McGuinness will have a near full hand to deal from. It was good to hear that Eoghan Ban Gallagher and Peadar Mogan were involved in recent challenge games. The only player who might not be ready for this weekend is Jason McGee but hopefully he will be back in action shortly.

This time last year young Glenties lad Finbarr Roarty made his debut in the Dr McKenna Cup but was then deemed illegal because he was underage. It was the first time I had ever heard of a player being deemed illegal because he was underage, it was always because a player was overage.

It will be interesting to see now Roarty goes on Saturday night as he is more than likely to be involved.

After watching some of the games last weekend in the opening round I want to reserve judgement on the new rules until I have seen three or four weekends.

Parts of the new rules were enjoyable and other parts were not, but it is too early to judge. It will take the players and also the referees a number of weeks to get up to speed with them.

The fact that Dublin won their opening game might be an advantage to us as they might be more relaxed coming to Donegal for the weekend. The forecast is for it to be milder but there could also be rain and I’m thinking the MacCumhaill Park might be sticky enough.

I saw where Kieran McGeeney was not happy after Armagh’s game with Galway as he was working off a different interpretation of one of the rules to that of the referee. There will be teething problems but they can be ironed out.

I thought Armagh were poor enough in that game against Galway and as a spectacle it was probably one of the worst games of the weekend. The game on Sunday between Roscommon and Down was much more attractive.

MACRORY CUP

I didn’t get to Ballyshannon on Saturday but from reports the all-Donegal MacRory Cup semi-final was a very entertaining game. The talent on show was impressive and I’m told there was a good crowd there.

The school in Donegal Town is benefiting from the work of Four Masters in particular and the big players on the team really stood up on Saturday. It is a massive achievement to reach the MacRory final in their first year and congratulations is also due to those involved in the Donegal Southwest team for giving the cream of the south and west of the county the chance. And they weren’t far away in the heel of the hunt.

Good luck to Abbey now in the final against St Pat’s, Maghera.

There was hard luck for Inishowen side, Naomh Padraig, Muff in their All-Ireland junior club final with just a point in it at the final whistle against Carraroe of Galway. Indeed, it has been pointed out that if the game were played under the new rules, Naomh Padraig would have won.

Nonetheless, it was a great achievement to reach a final and that Naomh Padraig side should do well in the Intermediate championship here in Donegal next year.

On the intercounty front our Ladies travelled to Clare and came home with a share of the spoils. Good luck to them when they play Westmeath this week in Athlone on Sunday.

Our hurlers went down narrowly to Meath, which just shows how far up the ladder they have come. They take on Tyrone this Sunday in Letterkenny and good luck to them in that game.

Brian McEniff was in conversation with Peter Campbell