I’m at a loss to understand why we were so awful, laments Brennan

John Brennan was honest enough to admit it.

Derry were awful, and he was at a loss to understand why.

“I don’t mind speaking the truth,’’ he said.

“We were outrun and outplayed. The first goal was a telling factor. ’It was a poor performance and I’m not proud of it.

“We have trained, the players have talked, we had conditioning weekends, we had everything. There is no better talent in Derry. I haven’t been told of any better than we have assembled there.

“I’m unhappy for Derry and Derry players. Derry have done that a lot of times in the past, filled with promise and didn’t carry out the promise. We came here very well prepared, but we were well beaten. Fair dues to Donegal.’’

Jim McGuinness was more than satisfied with the performance, in the second-half in particular when his Donegal team really opened up.

Yet he knows they have not been fully tested yet. Cavan and Derry were scant preparation for the challenge they will face against Tyrone in two weeks time.

“It’s no secret we’ve been trying to get more scorers and get more scores on the board, and we’ve managed to do that in a championship match again which is encouraging,’’ he said.

“But the game did peter out there and was a bit easier than we expected in the end.

“That won’t happen the next day, which will be a big big game for both games. The next few weeks is the period which will define our season.’’

McGuinness revealed Rory Kavanagh was supposed to be a late inclusion in the starting team, along with Michael Murphy, but they took no risks with his ankle injury.

They were probably confident they could win without him, but he will be available for the Ulster semi-final with Tyrone on June 30.

‘‘Rory felt it (ankle) a bit in the warm-up,’’ explained McGuinness.

“He said to me in the changing room that he felt he was ready to start but we decided the safest option was to let it sit and see if we needed to take him on. He has two weeks now to get ready.’’