Donegal’s Dr McKenna Cup clash with Monaghan is now a must-win scenario for Declan Bonner’s young men after Wednesday night’s defeat to a fairly strong looking Fermanagh side in Ballybofey.
And while team manager Bonner was understandably disappointed at conceding a “sloppy goal” he graciously conceded that Fermanagh deserved their victory on balance.
“We had a young, inexperienced team out against a fairly strong Fermanagh side and in the end a sloppy goal was the turning point,'' he said.
“There were stages in that game that we just switched off.
“We had a purple patch midway through the first half and kicked 1-4 and were three points up at half-time.
“We wanted to start second half well but we didn’t and missed a couple of chances and all of a sudden Fermanagh got a couple of scores.
“The goal came from a long, high ball that wasn’t dealt with and there were a number of things in that second half that would have been disappointing.
“But overall from our point of view it is all good preparation for the NFL which is only two and a half weeks away.”
Bonner added that there is still a lot more work to be done but there were quite a few more players to come back in.
“Jamie Brennan was very sharp when he came on and we had a grip around the middle for much of the first half but this match will be of huge benefit,'' he added.
“It was very difficult to learn anything from the QUB match but we have much to learn on the Fermanagh kick-outs in the second half where we just switched off and their wing backs were breaking over the top and they were not being tracked.
“That was disappointing and if you switch off you will be punished.''
Fermanagh’s Seamie Quigley hit seven points from frees, so were Donegal a little bit indisciplined?
Bonner said: “I felt that we did not get that many scoreable frees inside the area whereas Fermanagh did, but we want to bring the positives and there was a few things we did well.
“But this is a big learning curve for these young men against a seasoned Fermanagh team.”
Bonner added that he was very disappointed with the black card handed out to Odhran MacNiallais: “Someone said it was a trip but it looked innocuous and that was very disappointing as we wanted to get Odhran on the park for 50-60 minutes to see where he was at.
‘The Stephen McMenamin black card, I am not sure what that was for and his Fermanagh counterpart picked up a yellow card”.
Looking forward, Monaghan becomes a really big game as Donegal has a chance of qualifying if they can overcome the Farney boys in Clones.
“Yes the whole thing about the McKenna Cup is preparation for the NFL, that game against Fermanagh was a good high intensity one and that will stand by us.
“As long as we learn from the mistakes and we will be going back to work and try and sort a few of those problems out.
‘But it was a good evening’s work and in the end Fermanagh were probably the better side.”
