THERE were times last Sunday when Ryan McHugh stood in his own half, watching as Donegal developed an attack against Down.
He looked almost disinterested and then he would take off, leave his marker for dead and sprint forward into Down territory where he found a pocket of space, got on the end of the move and applied a precision finish. Four times he did that in last weekend’s Ulster Championship opener and each time a flag was raised.
Four points and a 16-point win. The perfect way to launch the Championship season?
“I still have a bit of work to do,” said the Kilcar clubman.
“To be fair to a lot of the boys, we have put in a lot of hard weeks’ training to get into this situation but you are only as good as your next performance.
“We have a massive match against Derry in two weeks’ time in Ballybofey against Derry and we can’t be looking beyond that. You can’t look past anything in the Ulster Championship. Derry will come to Ballybofey with a bit of inspiration after a massive National League campaign. We know Rory (Gallagher) extremely well so it is going to be an enthralling encounter and it is one we are looking forward to.”
The one negative on a day of almost total positivity for Donegal was that captain Michael Murphy didn’t make it until half-time. Murphy has been nursing a hamstring injury and, with a long summer in the offing, he came off after he felt the muscle “tighten up a bit”.
“You are disappointed, first and foremost,” said McHugh.
“He is a top, top player, he is our captain, our leader but it is Championship football and injuries happen. You don’t want them to happen and you try your best that it will not happen but unfortunately it happens and you have to deal with it.
“You try and pick yourself up, every player on the pitch has to try and lift themselves.
“Michael, to be fair to him, has dug Donegal out on numerous occasions all through the years and I think we dug him out of it there today.
“He is not superman, he is not going to be fit every single day. If stuff happens we have to react to that and I think we reacted well today. We didn’t drop our heads when our main man went off, we didn’t sulk. We just got on with it and we put in some huge performances.”
Donegal meet Derry on July 11 and by then movement is expected on the number of supporters which are permitted to attend games. Currently only 200 supporters are allowed at games in the Republic but that number could be raised before the north-west neighbours meet at MacCumhaill Park.
“It is disappointing,” said McHugh.
“You would love the place to be full as it would be on a normal year. We feel extremely honoured and privileged to be in a position that we are fit to play for our counties. Unfortunately there is not the thousands of people here that would be in a normal situation.
“We touched on it in the dressing room that we wanted to put a smile on the people back in Donegal watching on their TVs and hopefully we have done that.
“Even with the small crowd that was here you can still feed off it on the pitch. The League matches, the first match they got back against Armagh, it makes such a difference.
“That is what it is all about, the fans make it and it is not just Gaelic football. Every sport in the world you can see it in the Euros with the fans at the games they just make it and hopefully Gaelic football can get back to that very soon.”
