Jim McGuinness conceded that following Donegal’s loss to Tyrone in the opening round of the All-Ireland SFC group stage, he anticipated a more challenging path to the quarter-finals.
This proved to be the case. Concerns about injuries and performance that arose after the 2-17 to 0-20 defeat to Tyrone appear to have largely subsided, with only Caolan McGonagle currently working his way back into contention.
Donegal bounced back with victories over Cavan and Mayo, securing their spot in the last 12. They then decisively defeated Louth 2-22 to 0-12 at MacCumhaill Park.
“Very happy, very happy obviously, one game more than we wanted but at the same time we’re happy to take the game,” McGuinness said in Ballybofey. “Whenever we got beat against Tyrone we knew we’d be in this situation potentially and we were targeting these three weekends. So we’re delighted we have an opportunity at the third game now.
“That’s the most important thing, and we’ll take the positives from the day, obviously loads and bits of pieces to work on as well, particularly in the first half in terms of decision making and stuff.”
Donegal’s Ciarán Moore gets his pass away as Louth’s Conall McKeever closes in during Sunday’s game. Photo Evan Logan
Conor O’Donnell scored one goal for Donegal and when Ciaran Thompson scored his first ever championship goal in his 50th appearance in the 50th minute, the game was effectively over for Louth. Michael Murphy and Ryan McHugh were then substituted, and Niall O’Donnell made his return to the field for the first time since scoring the winning point in the Ulster SFC final against Armagh. Donegal will now face either Meath or Monaghan in the All-Ireland quarter-finals next weekend.
“It was a very good display in the second half,” McGuinness added. “We were clinical and did a good job to get over the line and get over the line with 20 minutes to spare, basically and give us a chance to get some players on the pitch as well that have been doing well in training.
“So it was a double edged sword for us in the first half, we weren’t being clinical and we were turning the ball over and they were hurting us, in the second half we were able to defend well and that gave us a platform to attack and we were putting the ball dead, so that would probably be the summary of the game to be honest.”
McGuinness’ delight as ‘clinical’ Donegal gets over the line was last modified: June 22nd, 2025 by
