Donegal and Tyrone square off for the Leo Murphy Cup

Donegal are chasing their first silverware of the new season in the form of the Leo Murphy Cup (U-20 Development League) when they host Tyrone at Letterkenny’s O’Donnell Park on Saturday afternoon, throw-in 12 noon.

The competition is a warm-up competition for the U-20 Ulster and All-Ireland Championship. Donegal won the toss, conducted on Tuesday evening, to host the final. Gary Duffy’s team progressed to this stage by virtue of three wins in their three group games.

Donegal opened with a 3-14 to 0-6 win over Derry in a fixture that was reversed to Celtic Park, before defeating Roscommon 2-9 to 0-11 in Castlerea. Then, on Saturday last Mayo were beaten 2-10 to 1-4 at MacCumhaill Park in Ballybofey.

Johnny McGroddy is Donegal’s leading marksman with a tally of 14 points from the three games. The Downings sharpshooter just pips goal sensation Bobby McGettigan, who completed the three games with a tally of four goals and one point.

Kealan Dunleavy and Luke McGlynn also featured prominently in the scoring stakes. In all, Donegal used 26 players in the course of the three group games and had 11 different scorers.

“It is a development league and we have used it to try out players and systems and formations in competitive games. That is important and we have taken a lot of learnings from the games so far,” said Donegal boss Duffy.

Two players who have not seen action so far are long term injured Jamie Grant from Termon and Donal McBride from Gaoth Dobhair. They were central figures in last year's team with Grant at full back and McBride, at centre-half back.

“Jamie and Donal are back in training and we would hope to have them back in a couple of weeks,” Duffy added. “They are certainly out of this weekend’s game.

“They are working away under the supervision of the medical team who will decide when they can return. They are making good progress and hopefully we will have them in the near future.”

Duffy also has injury concerns about goalkeeper Emmett Maguire who picked up an injury early against Mayo. The young Termon net minder who was also on the Letterkenny IT Sigerson Cup team was most unfortunate. Last Saturday’s game was his first start. Up to that point, Daithi Roberts was between the posts in the opening two rounds of games.

Tyrone are once again managed by former inter-county player Paul Devlin who is in his fifth season, wearing the manager’s bib.

They picked up two wins and a draw from their three group fixtures, with the most recent of those being the 3-14 to 0-7 hammering of Down on Saturday last in Garvahey.

A week before that, Tyrone drew 0-13 to 1-10 against Louth at the same venue having opened with a comfortable 4-17 to 0-9 success at Portglenone when they took on Antrim in the opening fixture.

“Tyrone’s record speaks for itself,” Duffy added. “We are really looking forward to another top quality side and it is a perfect preparation for the championship.”