Carndonagh captain Darragh Browne: ‘It's nice to be going up as champions’

Following last Saturday’s All-County Football League Division 3 triumph Carndonagh are looking forward to Division 2 football next year for the first time in a decade and a half.

Carndonagh saw off the challenge of a fancied St Mary’s, Convoy, in Hibernian Park, Burt on a 0-10 to 0-7 scoreline, to lift the title

The Inishowen club’s only other Division 3 success was back in 1995 and their last appearance in the final was in 2008 when they lost to Robert Emmets, which means their last season competing in the second tier was in 2009.

 “It is nice to be going up as champions,” said the team skipper and centre-back Darragh Browne. “At the start of the year, the aim was to win promotion and now that is achieved we turn our attention to the championship.” 

Carndonagh were beaten Junior A Football Championship finalists two seasons ago when they lost to Letterkenny Gaels. 

They are back chasing the crown this season and along with Saturday’s opponents, St Mary’s, Convoy, are one of the favourites to capture the Dr McCloskey Cup. 

And after inflicting the first defeat of the season on St Mary’s, Browne would not be surprised if the two teams were to lock horns again in the championship before the season is out. 

“It was a lovely game to play,” he said of Saturday’s showdown between the league’s top two.

St Mary’s topped the league table with 10 wins from 10 games played while Carndonagh finished in second place having lost one in 10 outings. 

The final head-to-head league game between the two teams was not played, It was pencilled in for seven days earlier but was shelved as both had qualified for the league final.   

 “I’m sure we will see Convoy again later in the year,” Browne added. “They are very good.”

Carndonagh, in an era of packed defences, played an attractive brand of attacking football and despite playing into a stiff breeze to being with they started on the front foot and took the game to St Marys from the first whistle.

“We have good pace coming from deep and we are always encouraged to run at teams and really go hard at them from the word go. It has worked so far this year,” Browne added. “We have a quality defence from the goalkeeper out and they have been solid all year and it gives us a good base to move forward.”

Carndonagh led 0-5 to 0-4 at half-time and though slow out of the blocks, on the resumption they kicked on the second period and had a further four points on the board before St Mary’s got off the mark in the second half. Liam Toye from a close-in free opened the St Mary’s account with 56 minutes his side's first score in over a half hour of play.  

“We were happy enough where we were at half-time but the break may be a momentum changer and we were very conscious of that,” Browne added.“There were no scores at all for a while at the start of the second half and luckily we got the first one and it really settled us down

“Convoy came into the game in the last few minutes. We struggled with kick-outs in the later stages of the game and it is something we will have to look at. We will take a lot of learnings from that game today.”