Donegal U-20's are back in Leo Murphy Cup action as they host Sligo on Saturday

Donegal welcome Sligo to MacCumhaill Park on Saturday as Leo McLoone’s youngsters look to bounce back from their opening Leo Murphy Cup defeat to Derry. 

The visitors had trailed at one stage in Owenbeg by seven points but admirably dragged themselves back to within a single goal nearing full time. In the end, the young Oak Leafers claimed a 1-14 to 0-12 victory. 

Owenie McGarvey is part of McLoone’s backroom team alongside the likes Colm McFadden and Eamon McGee. He says the aim for Donegal last weekend as well as this upcoming one was, and is, to get minutes into the legs of as many players as possible. 

“We have a group of players that are putting in a super effort at training,” said McGarvey. “It’s only fair and right that we take a look at them all in this league campaign and over the next number of weeks. 

“We gave game time to 21 players last Saturday. The aim will be to do the exact same this time out with Sligo coming to town. It’s about giving lads a platform to put up their hand for later on in the campaign. 

“There really is no substitute for exposure at this level. If we win on Saturday, that would be great. But the primary focus right now is to give everyone a fair crack of the whip. Championship, at home to Antrim, starts at the end of March so that’s what this is really gearing towards”. 

Sligo come to Ballybofey off the back of a loss to Mayo in their opening fixture. Still, Naomh Muire clubman McGarvey says the Yeats lads gave a good account of themselves there so Donegal have another real battle on their hands. 

“Sligo lost out to Mayo in their own opener - they went down by 0-16 to 0-11. It’s our first home outing so everything is really geared towards that now on Saturday.  Looking back at the Derry game, we would have been really happy with how we started the game and even finished it. 

“It was the 20-minute spell in between, either side of half-time really, that we maybe lost our way a little. The game kinda got away from us for a bit. We know that Derry are strong. But we’d be reasonably content with what we got out of the game last weekend. 

“It was the first day out and we do have fellas to come back in. In terms of battling and effort, we couldn’t fault it. We just need to tidy up on some of the basics really and try to eliminate some of the mistakes we made. That hopefully will come with time”.