Donegal vying for a place in the Ulster U-20 final

Donegal and Tyrone go toe-to-toe on tonight, Friday, at Celtic Park with the prize for the winners a place in this season’s Ulster U-20 final, throw-in 8pm.

It is their second meeting of this season, with Donegal claiming the laurels when they met four weeks ago at O’Donnell Park in the Leo Murphy Cup final.

Donegal won on a score of 2-10 to 1-6, with Kealan Dunleavy and Bobby McGettigan scoring the goals. Ciaran Bogue scored the Tyrone goal, while Ruari Canavan kicked two points.

But Donegal manager Gary Duffy who is in second season as manager is not reading too much into that game.

“This is a new competition. It is the championship,” insisted Duffy. “We were experimenting that day and so was Paul Devlin with Tyrone and players who did not play well in the league final are coming into form smf that was plain to be seen by Tyrone.

“They had three or four changes from the league final in O’Donnell Park.That game counts for nothing.Tyrone will be a different team on Friday night.”

Donegal won all four games in the Leo Murphy Cup and beat top teams Derry, Roscommon and Mayo as well as Tyrone in the warm-up competition.

And they made it five straight wins when they overcame Armagh last Friday night, in Ballybofey in pretty convincing fashion and were seven-point winners at the finish on a 1-13 to 0-9 scoreline.

Luke McGlynn, just up from minor, scored the goal and also knocked over two points while Johnny McGriddy with a score of seven points was top scorer.

The game marked the return of the long term injured Donal McBride and Richard O’Rourke. McBride featured from the start in the middle of the field and made a telling return and O’Rourke had a big influence when sprung from the bench.

Tyrone dethroned the champions Down in equally impressive fashion on Saturday afternoon in Loughmacrory and were 1-13 to 1-10 winners.

Tyrone are dangerous all over the field, they have some excellent players and they have a great balance throughout the team,” said the Donegal manager who watched the game live.

“They have Conor Cush back he did not play in Letterkenny and along with Ruairi Canavan he is a big threat in the half forward line,” Duffy added.

“They played against the wind in the first half and they stuck with them and they pushed on in the second half and it was clear to see they have a lot of good players.”

Another member of last year’s starting team Jamie Grant was named among the replacements last Friday night, having missed the entire league campaign. Bobby McGettigan, Kealan Dunleavy and Carlos O’Reilly all picked up knocks against Armagh and had to be replaced. But the manager is hopeful of having all three for what promises to be a closely contested encounter. Derry and Cavan meet in the other semi-final also on Friday night. That game is in the Athletic Grounds.