Mac's View: Donegal have to give Cork a hot reception in Ballybofey

Donegal need to get their Allianz National Football League campaign off to a good start and that means getting the win over Cork in the opening game in MacCumhaill Park, Ballybofey on Sunday.

We know that Cork don’t travel well and have a very poor record here in Donegal, but they have been preparing much better this year than in years gone by. I’m not sure if they have ever won in Donegal and we need to keep it that way.

But over the last couple of years under John Cleary I’m hearing that they are improving. Cleary was a very good corner-forward and if he has the Castlehaven players back then they will have a formidable team with them coming north.

It’s too early to know what the Donegal line-out will be but I would be going with a full strength team. Hopefully, the injuries to Eoghan Bán Gallagher and Michael Langan will have cleared up as they are two players who I think would do well against the Cork style of play.

Donegal definitely will have Gavin Mulreany in goals and he got a good outing last Saturday evening in the Dr McKenna Cup final. He is a very comfortable player on the ball and in this modern era of having the ‘keeper play much more as an extra outfield player, he will have a big role to play. His long range free kicking is also top notch, but hopefully he won’t be our top scorer this week. He will have to deal with a more organised kind of press than maybe at club level, but he is up to it.

Our forwards need to get more scores this week than they did against Derry. Mulreany was our top scorer in Omagh, which didn’t look good.

Looking back at that game we put in a very good first half performance and matched Derry in all aspects. But in the second half when Derry upped the ante, we just didn’t step up to the plate. 

We allowed them far too much possession. They dominated the ball and must have had in excess of 70 per cent of the ball. But then that Derry team could well have been in the All-Ireland final last year. They were unlucky and maybe hard done by to lose out to Kerry. They have much more work done than Donegal and that was borne out in that second half.

But there were positives from that first half. Young Peadar Mogan had a fine game and Caolan McGonagle had a very strong first half, making some great runs and bursting through tackles.

But we cannot allow teams the amount of possession that we allowed Derry in the second half. Then we also kicked three points from play, another area where we have to improve.

But the game was probably a good wake up call before the start of the league. We were coasting through games in the McKenna Cup, apart from a 15 minute period against Tyrone at the start of the second half in that game.

I’m sure Jim (McGuinness) will have those things worked out for Cork. We need to give Cork a hot reception.

We are hearing that this is a much better prepared Cork team and if they have Brian Hurley back from Castlehaven they will have a potent attack. He is a good operator.
https://www.donegallive.ie/news/gaa/1404025/the-alternative-view-fermanagh-bumps-en-route-to-omagh-defeat.html

We have plenty of memories of playing Cork and we’ll always remember the time when they made us travel twice back in 1990. They were just after coming back from a two week holiday and they had a wedding that weekend. We were messed around.

They won’t carry a big support with them on Sunday but it is vital that the Donegal support is more vocal than it was on Saturday last. We need to hear the Donegal supporters when things are not going well. That is just as important as when things are going well. They can become the 16th man.

The game is important for two reasons. First it’s the first game of the league and second, it’s a home game. We have four home games and winning them will give us a good chance at promotion and also guarantee us a place in the All-Ireland series.

Let’s get to Ballybofey on Sunday and cheer on the team.

My congratulations to John McNulty and the Ladies team who got their league campaign off to a winning start down in Laois. It is not an easy place to go and conditions at the weekend were not great for football. 

They have their first home game this Sunday when they take on Kildare in O’Donnell Park, Letterkenny early on Sunday and they would appreciate plenty of support also.

Brian McEniff was in conversation with Peter Campbell