Disappointed departed Donegal keeper Peter Boyle said he was convinced that he was leaving an Ulster provincial title behind him, and also a lot of friends, after his shock decision to quit Declan Bonner’s squad last weekend.
“I have no doubt that I am leaving behind a team that is going to win the Ulster championship this year, said Boyle.
“I could have sat on the bench and got an Ulster medal but for me it would not have counted as anything.
“I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Donegal can win an Ulster title, just look at that full-forward line.
“It is unbelievable and the management team as well is second to none.
“There is no stone left unturned between Declan and all his team.
‘They are all very good and every training session you learn something new and if you have a flaw in your game it will be rectified.
“The hardest thing about leaving for me was that I am leaving behind a lot of friends.
“You get a good rapport with the lads.”
Despite a number of attempts, Donegal team manager Declan Bonner was not contactable for comment.
Boyle added that he “could not afford to be absent for my club Aodh Ruadh if I was not getting a game with Donegal”.
Boyle told his “surprised” boss Bonner of his decision, shortly after Donegal’s narrow victory over Kildare in the NFL in Ballyshannon.
25-year-old Boyle, who was on the Donegal U-21 side that narrowly lost the All-Ireland to Dublin in 2010, has been on and off the senior panel since making his debut in 2011.
He has played 17 times since.
Speaking on the background to his departure after starting against Galway and Dublin, where he did little wrong, he said had no problem with current incumbent Shaun Patton or Declan Bonner or the squad, for whom he had the “height of respect”.
He was dropped for the Dr McKenna Cup final and also for the vital Kildare match on his home pitch in Ballyshannon.
“I knew Shaun was getting a game in the Dr McKenna Cup final and that’s fine, it might have been a final but it is still the McKenna Cup” he added.
“I knew that the Kildare game was a massive one for us, our biggest game of the year.
“On the Tuesday before that match there was an A V B game and I noticed I was on the B team.
“Nothing was said to me and an A and B game was on Thursday and I was on the B team again.
“The Donegal team was named on the Saturday and I was not on.”
Boyle stated the reasons for his disappointment.
“I was disappointed, not the fact that it was in Ballyshannon, people might say he did not get a game on his home turf and he is sour about that,” he said.
“That’s not the case, but it was the fact that it was the biggest game of the year and he felt that I didn’t do anything wrong.
“I was dropped and disappointed about that for when you have your biggest game you play your strongest team”.
“If Declan wants to play Shaun, that’s fine, but I can’t afford to be absent from Aodh Ruadh this year.
“This is an absolutely huge year, and knowing that I was not getting a game with Donegal I will give it 100 per cent with the club.
“And if Aodh Ruadh get relegated I will have no regrets, knowing that I gave it 100 per cent, that I was there and present for it all.”
Boyle added that he told his county manager of his decision immediately after the Kildare match.
“I did not want to say anything to Declan before the Kildare match, but I had kind of known in advance on Tuesday, and was kind of hoping that something would be said to me.
“I knew then that this might not be for me training six days a week.
“I chatted Declan straight afterwards in the Sandhouse in Rossnowlagh, as I thought it would be poor form on my part if I rang him.
“And I thought it would be even worse if I said anything to him before the game and did not want to affect any team preparations.
“In fairness to Declan, he was disappointed and shocked, but I had already made my mind up.
“I probably had taken him by surprise because I had not given any inkling that I had made the decision that I had gone with.
“He told me to give it a few more weeks and see where I was at and as I said my mind was made up and I was looking forward to getting back into club training on Tuesday and Thursday.”
Boyle has been back training with his club last week and said it was “really refreshing to go back training with the club. ey are the people you play with all your life.
He added that there was no way he would reconsider:
“I think it would be poor form on my part to leave and then all of a sudden go back.
“I have made up my mind for now and I have left on good terms”.
But he did not rule out a possible return in the future, if his county needed him.
“I will never close the door and if they are ever stuck I would like to think that the first person that they would call would be me”.
But for now his whole emphasis will be on Aodh Ruadh.
“I am only 25 and I have been absent from the club scene for so long,” he continued.
“You might see me playing most games.
“But when you are not there and you might be talking but why would the boys be listening to you when you are not putting in the hard graft.
“But you are just there on the day of the game.
“I could not leave the Donegal set up with nothing to fall back on.
“You get into a routine and I have been in that routine solid since Rory asked me back in, in 2014.
“To leave that all behind cold turkey would be very difficult.
“Mark Anthony McGinley got injured and I got a few games then.
“It was great to get in at that time but I felt I was not up to level as Gaelic football had evolved so much in that period.
“I learned so much and Rory Gallagher taught me so much and changed my mentality of what a goalkeeper is.”
But he added: “The hardest thing about leaving for me was that I am leaving behind a lot of friends.
“You get a good rapport with the lads.
“A lot of the boys have contacted me.”
