McNulty hails 'massive achievement' as DUL U-14s crowned Inter-League Champions

The Donegal Underage League Under-14s were crowned SFAI Inter-League Cup Champions as they defeated South Belfast on Saturday in Limerick.

The team, managed by Cappry Rovers man Paddy McNulty, with David O’Carroll, Caolan McConnell, and John Brennan part of the backroom team, defeated South Belfast 1-0 in the final as St Catherine’s man Levi Kelly scored the only goal of the game midway through the first half.

The Donegal lads were in the final of the competition last year, but lost out to Cork, and McNulty felt that was an important lesson that they learned as they won the final this time in Limerick.

“It’s a massive achievement for the boys and back-to-back All-Ireland finals. We have five changes from that squad when Cork beat us 3-0 last year.

"They scored three goals in four minutes, but I think the experience of being in that final really stood to the boys this year.

“Our preparation was key, we went down the day before and booked one of the pitches we played on and got a session done to prepare the boys. There are different lines on the pitch between the yellow and white lines, and you could get caught out on them. You work on small percentages in finals, and any wee thing like that can help.

“It was a wide pitch, and we wanted to get the ball wide as quickly as we could, and that’s how we got our goal, a cross in and Levi Kelly from St Catherine’s scored at the back post.

“The game was very tight, and the two teams were cautious, but we got that break for the goal.

“Harry McBride, our goalkeeper, did very well, and the whole defensive unit. From midfield to attack, everyone played to their potential.

“We did our research on South Belfast, they had scored a lot of goals in the third quarter, so we really focused on that, and they came at us strong, but we defended well.”

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After coming through their group with Cavan-Monaghan Underage League, Sligo-Leitrim, and Inishowen, the Donegal side beat NERL 3-0 in the preliminary quarter-finals.

Back-to-back 3-1 wins in the quarter-finals and semi-finals against Kerry and Waterford paved the way to the final, and they became only the second Donegal schoolboys team to win an All-Ireland Cup title.

But as the dust settles on the huge achievement, which was celebrated with a homecoming in Jackson’s Hotel in Ballybofey on Saturday evening, attention will soon turn to the Kennedy Cup in June.

“Donegal have never won at Under-14, and the Under-16s won the All-Ireland last year, which was the first Donegal schoolboys team to ever win an All-Ireland.

“So it was a massive achievement, and the boys probably won’t realise it until they look back on it in five or six years.

“But it was also massive preparation for the Kennedy Cup because we had competitive games right up until the middle of March. We’re ten weeks out from the Kennedy Cup, and it closed that gap for the preparation.

“Everyone will be looking at Donegal now, and that’s probably the only negative, we’ll be a massive target for other teams.

“But we could have been knocked out in January and looking for friendlies up until June. Now we have a two-week break, then we’ll go back hard for eight weeks of preparation and playing friendlies against teams in the North.

“The Kennedy Cup is the big one, and when we took this job three years ago, that’s what we were looking towards.”

Donegal Underage League squad: Harry McBride, Eoghan O'Neill, Daithi McHugh, Patrick Caldwell, Caolan Devine, Zac O'Carroll, Tiarnan Caterson, Peader Finnegan, Ryan McNulty, Logan Morrow, Charlie Carr, Aaron McBride, Darragh O'Sullivan, Mairtin Og Coll, Levi Kelly, Dominic Cush, Harry Lafferty, Oliver Maguire, Sam Tourish, Darragh Coyle.