St Michael’s defender Michael ‘The Rock’ Gallagher has said the reigning All-County League champions defeat to Dungloe last weekend was a wake-up call.
Dungloe ran out convincing winners over an out of sorts St Michael’s side that were without the services of Donegal players Colm McFadden, Christy Toye and Marc Anthony McGinley.
Despite scoring a goal in the opening minute, Eddie Harkin’s side never kicked on and a rampant Dungloe side ran out convincing winners on a score-line of 2-11 to 1-06.
However, Gallagher feels the defeat was the wake-up call they needed ahead of their clash with Ardara on Easter Monday.
Gallagher told Donegal Daily, “We were missing a few key players last week, but we were second best all the way through last week’s game and deserved nothing from it.
“Dungloe were the fitter, faster and hungrier side and they fully deserved their win.
“I think the manner of defeat surprised a few of our lads, and maybe it’s the wake-up call we needed.
“We’re maybe not where we should be in terms of fitness and we know now that we need to get back on the training pitch, and keep working at it.
St Michael’s won the All-County League last year but it’s the Donegal SFC title they crave having come agonisingly close to winning it in 2011.
They were narrowly edged out in a titanic semi-final with St Eunan’s in 2014, and again lost out to the same opposition last year at the same juncture.
However, the manner of that defeat hurt St Michael’s, fancied by many to go all the way, they exited tamely after a second-half collapse.
And now they will faces their old foes again in the group stages of the Donegal SFC along with Kilcar and Killybegs.
It’s a tough group, with St Eunan’s, Kilcar and St Michael’s who all have genuine ambitions of winning the Donegal SFC title.
Gallagher said, “It’s a tough group, there’s no doubt about it, but I think that’s a good thing.
“It focuses you right from the get go, and we know we’ve got the hit the ground running against Killybegs.
“We’ve beaten Kilcar before in the championship in Towney, and we’ve run Eunan’s close, so while we know it’s going to be tough we don’t fear anyone.
“But we’ve a lot of work to do before those games, and we just need to keep training hard.
“But now we’ll look to bounce back against Ardara on Monday and hopefully we can get a win and kick-start the season from there.”
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