Hugh McFadden admits there's 'a few sad faces going up the road' following Kerry loss

Ryan McHugh of Donegal gets the ball away under pressure from teammate Hugh McFadden and Paul Geaney of Kerry

placeholder image — Ryan McHugh of Donegal gets the ball away under pressure from teammate Hugh McFadden and Paul Geaney of Kerry

The Killybegs midfielder was back in the Donegal team for the first time since last July

Hugh McFadden was back in action for Donegal for the first time since last year’s Ulster SFC semi-final loss to Tyrone but still left Killarney expressing his disappointment.

Donegal were beaten on a 1-13 to 0-7 scoreline by the Kingdom on a miserable day at Fitzgerald Stadium, where there was driving wind and rain followed by a long bus journey home.

Kerry dispose of Donegal with minimal fuss in Killarney

“We came down here with ambitions of winning and that didn’t happen and a nine-point loss was a big margin,” McFadden told Ocean FM afterwards. “There’s a few sad faces going up the road. The conditions were very difficult - and I hate using that as an excuse - but it was especially in the first half.

“Kerry came with a very strong press and put us under pressure. We weren’t great at carrying the ball out of defence and got turned over. We were seven down at half-time and had ambitions of trying to get a few scores quickly.

"We knew that it was only 0-3 to 0-2 after 17 minutes to them so they could do something similar to us in the second half. We gave away quite a bad goal.”

McFadden admitted he was perhaps not the one to answer the question as to why Donegal didn’t use the wind to go low more frequently in the second half and stressed that all eyes were now on the visit of the All-Ireland champions to Ballybofey.

Bonner: Kerry were the better side, no doubt about it

“A lot of questions like that will be asked and I don’t have the answers now. It was hard and Kerry got success out of a few quick balls,” he added. “It’s up to us now to try and get a result against Tyrone next weekend. It's a big game. We’re just going to try and win every single game.”