Why dual club status needn't be a barrier to success

The manager of Carndonagh senior men's football team believes promotion to Division 3 is an achievable aim for his side this season, provided they can find the right balance as a dual club.

Padraig Doherty was speaking after Sunday's opening Division 4 match against Naomh Muire which ended in a draw despite the Inishowen men having decent leads in both the first and second halves.

He said: "I think the second quarter of the first half is where we let them come back into it, and ending up only one point ahead at half-time was not enough.

"It wasn't the best result, but it wasn't the worst either, considering we haven't played a game in nine months.
"What was good to see is that the boys have kept a lot of the good habits that we tried to instill in them last year. In the past, we have lost leads to teams and they have gone on to beat us."

Carn have been languishing in Division 4 for the past seven seasons, and they will have their work cut out to achieve promotion given that they have stepped up to the senior hurling league this season.

With a significant number of Sunday's starting line-up having featured for the club's hurlers just two days before, fatigue was an obvious factor against Naomh Muire, particularly in the last 15 minutes when many Carn legs looked tired.

But accomplished Donegal hurler Doherty insists the demands of playing both codes doesn't mean the footballers should resign themselves to playing yet another season in Division 4 next year.

"There's no point playing if you're not going to go for promotion," he said. "We just have to try and find the right balance and try and make sure boys are not doing too much.

"If we can keep everyone injury-free we have a good chance of achieving our goals."

Having featured for the Donegal senior men against Dublin on Saturday evening, Conor O'Donnell was on the sidelines on Sunday shouting encouragement to his teammates, who no doubt could have used his expertise in the final stages of the match.

But as Doherty astutely pointed out: "Obviously Conor being unavailable is a big loss for us, but the reality is that if we're depending on him to win us games then we're in a bad place before we start.

"If you have to rely to such a large extent on just one player, then you have a more systemic problem within the club.

"Most of the players that lined out on Sunday were in the squad that finished out last season, so there's continuity there, which is really important."