Ryan McHugh: ‘Donegal has a lot of good footballers’

That famous footballing family from Bavin in Kilcar are well enough qualified to assess the state of Donegal football and Ryan McHugh speaks highly of the panel at Declan Bonner’s disposal.

McHugh is now in his 10th season with the Donegal seniors and having sat out the opening two Dr McKenna Cup fixtures against Down and Antrim, returned on Tuesday night in the 2-9 to 0-11 win over Rory Gallagher’s Derry.

Declan Bonner pleased with endeavour from work-in-progress Donegal

Donegal are through to the Dr McKenna Cup final after a semi-final win over Derry.

“Well I don't know if I’m back in the groove as I kicked a couple of wides and hit the post but it was great to get it into the legs, as you can train and train and train,” McHugh said afterwards. “A really good competitive match against a top Ulster team is really all you can ask for. Thankfully we got that tonight.

“The last couple of years we’ve played a lot of boys in the McKenna Cup. You can see now there’s more experienced boys like Michael Langan, Ciaran Thompson, myself, Eoghan Ban Gallagher, Brendan McCole - all started playing McKenna Cup.

“It’s a good competition and if it wasn’t here you’d be playing good challenge matches so it’s great to get a competitive match and get a crowd in to watch us. We’ve Monaghan on Saturday now, which is great 10 days out from Mayo.”

Donegal ease their way past Derry and onto the McKenna Cup final

Caolan McGonagle and Odhran McFadden-Ferry goals pave the way for victory for Declan Bonner's side over the Oak Leaf County

McHugh made reference to the Sigerson Cup fixture between Letterkenny Institute of Technology and University of Limerick, which Maxi Curran’s side lost in an entertaining contest 2-23 to 3-15, as one of the indicators of the decent standard in the county.

Added to that, Donegal have introduced nine new players in this season’s McKenna Cup, with Shane O’Donnell, Charlie McGuinness, Caolan McColgan, Aaron Doherty, Odhran Dohery, Jamie Grant, Rory O’Donnell, Mark Curran and Ryan McFadden all coming in.

LyIT go down fighting in Sigerson Cup as Clifford rules the roost for UL

The Kerry forward has now scored 2-12 in two Sigerson Cup outings, with 2-7 today against Maxi Curran's LyIT at the Connacht GAA Centre

“There was a good Donegal presence on the Letterkenny Institute of Technology panel too, so Donegal has a lot of good footballers,” McHugh added. “It’s just a matter of getting it all together, getting them out on the pitch to the best of their ability. There’s a lot of change. It’s what you need in a squad. You need a lot of players pushing people on and fighting for positions. Since day one, when I came in for Donegal in 2013, we’ve always had that.”

Donegal will take on Monaghan on Saturday evening, 5pm, in the McKenna Cup final and then eight days later open their Allianz League Division 1 campaign against Mayo in Sligo.

“All these early season competitions are about getting yourself and your squad ready for the first National League match and we've a huge one against Mayo,” McHugh said. “As a player and a supporter of Gaelic football, people can look forward to it. With all that’s going on in the world over the last couple of years, we haven’t really had a proper league these last two years. It’s great to be watching them and to be involved in them.”