DONEGAL hurlers have been working on fighting to the finish – and it paid off with a late flurry against Roscommon.
With Donegal trailing by three points, Ronan McDermott plundered an injury time goal before excellent points by Niall Cleary and Declan Coulter swung the pendulum in their favour.
Those late scores secured what may prove a vital Division 2B win of Mickey McCann’s men.
“We’ve showed that we don’t give up until the end,” McCann said.
“It’s something that we work on. Things can change quick. We had enough chances in the game to win it.
“We showed great resilience to keep going. It’s a great result and a nice way to win it.
“We hit form in the last couple of minutes. It’s the right time to do it. The only time the scoreboard matters is at the end.
“In years gone by, we might have thrown in the towel.”
Today saw O’Donnell Park play host to a first game under the new hurling rules.
The introduction of a black card rule – which sees penalties awarded and the offending player sin-binned for ten minuets for cynical fouls inside the 20m which deny goalscoring chances – have created much uncertainty.
Roscommon were awarded two penalties and Donegal were given one.
Just one of them, by Roscommon’s Cathal Dolan, was converted. Dolan netted in the first half but he had a second-half penalty saved by Donegal ‘keeper Luke White.
Late in the first half, Coulter fired wide from a penalty.
McCann was critical of the decision to punish Stephen Gillespie for a 14th minute foul on Conor Mulry.
The Donegal manager said: “This new rule will be very hard to watch. I felt the full-forward charged at Stephen Gillespie. He had no option but to stand up.
“If you’re coaching at high intensity and working hard, then they get pulled in a competitive game for wee things, it’s hard to know what way to coach it. I felt there were a lot of picky frees.”
