McColgan ‘buzzing’ as U-17’s face into Armagh semi-final

Cormac McColgan admitted he was buzzing having come off the substitutes bench to help Donegal to the Electric Ireland Ulster U-17 semi-final, where they will take on Armagh this Friday at Healy Park.

The Naomh Padraig clubman was beaming in the wake of Donegal’s 1-9 to 0-10 victory over Monaghan in Clones on Wednesday night last.

After a good start and 1-3 to 0-2 lead by the first water-break, Donegal found themselves a man down, following the sending off of Ethan Friel for two first half yellows and then a point down, 0-8 to 1-4.

Stephen Mooney was finding his groove for Monaghan in the No 11 shirt with three scores within the first 75 seconds of the second half.

“Everything is on Armagh now,” he said. “I’m buzzing. We made a good start to the game and got a few scores on the board. Monaghan started to find their way back into it again, especially with those three points at the start of the second half.

“We knew there would be a dull moment in them and we fought through it, right till the very end. With 14 men and Monaghan on a bit of a scoring run the heads could’ve gone down but the boys dug deep.”

Ahead of the final quarter, the intensity of the Donegal huddle was apparent as they bounced back to their positions determined not to let the chance of procession to the last four slip.

For a side who last year only got one outing in the Buncrana Cup prior to the season getting frozen short, the camaraderie in the panel plucked by Luke Barrett from here there and everywhere.

“There was loads of encouragement in it and everyone was shouting to fight on through.” McColgan added. “There was great belief. The subs came on and knew that every last ball counts. 

“We’d one game last year and now it’s a completely different team with a lot of young boys that can play again next year. We were in the deep end and everyone did their bit to prepare. We were ready for the championship and it showed against Monaghan. You could see all the hard running was done.”