Major personnel blow for Donegal ahead of league semi clash with Tyrone

Donegal have been struck a major hammer blow ahead of Saturday’s crunch National Hurling League Division 2B semi-final against Tyrone in O’Donnell Park, Letterkenny.

Mickey McCann is going to be minus his entire Setanta contingent, with the Ulster club champions having a pre-booked trip to Portugal, which could not be altered.

This means Donegal will be missing their two outstanding players to date, in the league, in Stephen McBride at full-back and ace score-getter Gerry Gilmore up top. 

In total, McCann is going to have to deal with eight absentees as he will also have to plan without Bernard Lafferty, Josh Cronolly McGee, Sean Ward, Mark Callaghan, Oisin Marley and Ruairi Campbell for the weekend’s semi-final.

Manager McCann admits it presents a real selection headache ahead of their Red Hand tussle. 

“Can you imagine a Tyrone team without the Carrickmore lads,” he said. “It is very unfortunate but, in fairness to Setanta, it is something that was unavoidable.

“It could not be changed so we are not in a good place, but we will do the best we can. There is nothing Setanta could and, to be fair, the semi-final was not in the fixtures originally”.

McCann explains that Donegal have already got what they wanted from the League in their promotion to Division 2A where they will be playing against the likes of Kerry, Kildare, Meath, Down and Derry next year.

“I’m not saying we are not going out to win the match because it will give other lads a chance. But with the likes of Danny Cullen, Declan Coulter and Ronan McDermott still out this is a massive loss.”

A few short years ago, this kind of issue could have resulted in Donegal in Donegal forfeiting the fixture. But McCann pointed out that they will still have a panel of 25 for Saturday.

But he agrees that there are bigger fish to fry in terms of attempting to re-gain the Nickey Rackard Cup, which has been the primary objective from the off.

“We will be going all out to win on Saturday but if we do, then we will have a tough final against Derry and that is only two weeks away from the championship as the season is so very tight. There really is no let-up”. 

So the boss says Saturday will provide a real opportunity for those on the fringes to shine. 

“We have Daire Ó Maoileidigh, Jack O’Loughlin, Peter Kelly, Cormac Finn and Cathal O’Brien of St Eunan’s to bring in, and Oisin Grant of Buncrana has been a real find this season also.”

The last time these sides met Aidy Kelly tied the game for Tyrone with a last-gasp free a few weeks ago. 

“He hit 0-18 against Wicklow last weekend as well so he is really on song,” McCann explained. 

“They also have a wee lad from Ballycastle called Joe McToal who is pretty handy and they still have the likes of Lorcan Devlin, Bryan McGurk, Fionn Devlin, Tiernan Morgan and Rory Weir.

“Any other year if you were missing the Setanta lads you would have trouble fielding a team, but thankfully that is no longer the case.

“There is still a panel of 25 for Saturday and if we were to get over Tyrone, we would have the Setanta lads back for the final as they are only away from Friday to Monday.

“This is a great chance for the fringe players, and it gives us the underdog tag and everybody will be expecting Tyrone to beat us.

“But these boys of ours are hungry for places and they will have a chance to go out and express themselves.”