MacCumhaills exactly where they expected to be - Devaney
Damian Devaney says a SFC quarter-final spot was the goal at the start of the season when he came back on board in the Twin Towns.
However, a wobbly start to their championship season layered some pressure as an opening loss to Dungloe and subsequent draws against both St Eunan’s and Gaoth Dobhair left them feeling vulnerable.
But a confident flexing of their pedigree a fortnight ago in seeing off Glenswilly in Ballybofey helped secure their progress to the knockout stages.
And the pleasing thing for the manager was how they followed that up last weekend in the preliminary round quarter-final in a comfortable seven-point win over Na Dúnaibh.
Indeed, at one stage approaching the three-quarter hour mark, the hosts led 3-11 to 0-6 as Oisin Gallen rolled home his hat-trick from a second spot-kick on the night.
The visitors clawed back some ground late on, on the scoreboard, but it was an encounter that never looked in any doubt from very early on in MacCumhaill Park at the weekend.
“We had to play very well, our attacking game had to be good because their attacking game is top class,” Devaney explained.
“They got two goals that were as good as you’ll see. That was always going to take a lot of watching.
“But we’re delighted to get the win. Oisin had a very good game as well - got the goals and it all worked relatively well.
“We missed a little bit, and we can work on that. But the important thing is that we got the victory.”
Devaney, joint boss with Luke Gavigan, says it remains difficult to believe a game is won, even when the leading margin jumped to 14 points on Saturday night. And for that reason he remained cautious right up until the final whistle.
“You just never know the way the game is now and how quickly the thing can change on the scoreboard.
“We saw against Naomh Conaill a while back, Downings went in six down in Glenties but came back and probably should have won that game.
“So we never expected them to go away. With SP and ‘Cookie’ there, we knew they’d be fit and have the capacity to go right to the wire. And they did keep fighting.
“But our attacking play was really sharp and we got the scores again at the end there”.
As things would transpire, MacCumhaills would once again be pitted against Gaoth Dobhair in the SFC with a place in the semi-finals up for grabs the weekend after next.
At the time of speaking, though, Devaney said making the last eight should be the bare ambition for a club like MacCumhaills.
“That’s what it was all about from day one - we’re where we wanted to be and where we expected to be.
“We’d two good performances in the draws with St Eunan’s and Gaoth Dobhair. But we knew going into the Glenswilly game that nothing other than a win would do.
“We were well up for last week and we got a performance and a result. Training had been really good the last week in the lead-in to this. The atmosphere around the set-up was good.
“I still believe we have some things to work on and going into a quarter-final, that’s not a bad place to be now over the next two weeks”.
“The draw so far hasn’t been overly kind to us but when you get to this stage, regardless it’s going to be competitive, whatever comes your way.
“All teams are coached, professional and so well set up that we’ll be in a tough game no matter what.”
“There is a freshness there at the moment and we had a full panel to pick from this evening. Luke Gavigan came off there but that was just a precautionary measure.
“So we have a big fortnight now in front of us and it’s all geared towards the quarter-finals weekend”.