McCole relishing his role at full-back

Donegal sit in third place in the Allianz National Football League after two games thanks to their win over Kildare on Sunday and full-back Brendan McCole has settled into the role with two very strong performances.

On Sunday last he was up against Daniel Flynn, who has given a number of full-backs plenty of trouble over the last few years but the St Naul's man nullified the Kildare No 14 to such an extent that he made little impact and failed to score.

But when talking to the media afterwards, McCole treated it as another day at the office, and there was a hint that he was looking forward to future duels in the next month or so.

“You are going to have your Rian O’Neill’s, Con O’Callaghan’s and Daniel is a great player, he has great pace and great athleticism, so I was just happy to come out on the right side of it," said McCole.

“It is always a big task in Division One and every day is going to be a tough one and you just take it as it comes."
With Neil McGee out injured McCole has performed very well against Mayo and Kildare and the game on Sunday last in MacCumhaill Park against the Lilywhites were nothing more than he had expected. “Tough, tough tough, and we knew it was going to be a tough game.

“They got a good result against Kerry and came up here full of confidence and they put in a good shift but thankfully we came out on the right side."

He agreed that the two Donegal goals in the first half were vital scores in the win. “Goals were vital, they win games and Paddy McBrearty and Ryan McHugh stepped up and delivered and finished them well."

McCole felt Donegal did much better this week in dealing with holding a lead, especially after Kildare had a good start to the second half.

“Every team is going to get a purple patch and it was about riding out the storm and thankfully we did that.
“Conditions were slightly better but we have to take the learnings from this game and bring it into the next match.”

McCole said he hadn't even thought about the Kerry game yet and was happy to have a week off now with time to focus then on Kerry. He also was full of praise for the back-up in the Donegal squad.

“I said a few weeks ago in an interview that we have a strong panel of 30 players who are all keen to get into that final 26.
“There is big competition for places and when the opportunity comes, they will try and take their chance," said McCole, who praised all of his teammates including young Carndonagh player Conor O'Donnell.

“Conor O’Donnell is a brilliant player and was unlucky with a bad injury for some time, but he has really come back well”.