The progress in a short space of time has been encouraging and Donegal manager Rory Gallagher was certainly taken by his young charges in Cavan town last night.
By Chris McNulty, Donegal Sport Hub
The sounds of spring are in the air and, with summer coming into view, Gallagher is excited by his new crop, who dominated Cavan, still searching for a first win in Division 1 since 2004.
“The important thing is that we arrive into the summer a better team,” Gallagher said.
“ We’re making progress. We felt that it was going to be an important night.
“It was a good performance. It wasn’t perfect, but there was a lot of positives from it.”
Donegal raced into an early five-point lead, but scored just one further point before the break, when they led 0-6 to 0-4.
Cavan’s task was tougher still with Killian Clarke red carded late in the first half.
Within three minutes of the restart, Hugh McFadden boomed over a rousing score and Eoin McHugh polished a well-worked move for a goal.
“Eoin has been threatening to score goals at this level for a while,” Gallagher said.
“He has been involved in a few assists, but it’s great to see him finish that.
“I thought we had a really positive attitude with the ball. We controlled possession.
“We could have had nine, ten, eleven on the board at half-time. The reality is that it was a disappointing situation to be only two points up coming into half-time.
“I was really pleased with how we parked that at half-time and we dominated the second half. We needed more people that were able to get the ball over the bar.”
Eight players, including the excellent Ciaran Thompson – who hit five in a Man of the Match display – and the lively Jamie Brennan, who posted three after his introduction, were on the mark.
Gallagher, who has still to welcome Patrick McBrearty into the attack, said: “We haven’t scored heavily enough in the last couple of years and we have come up short in Ulster finals by not putting the ball over the bar enough.
“We have to make sure that that remains a big focus for us.”
They break now for a week and Tyrone visit Ballybofey on Saturday, March 18 – just three days after the counties and many of the same protagonists go head-to-head in an Ulster Under-21 quarter-final.
On June 18, exactly three months from then, those teams will expect to clang swords in an Ulster semi-final.
As he left Breffni Park last night, Gallagher felt quite content with where his squad is, given that McBrearty, Martin McElhinney, Karl Lacey and Kieran Gillespie have to return, while Rory Carr has been given the all-clear on a shoulder injury.
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