Defensive tactics a means to an end as Donegal bask in title glory

DONEGAL selector Rory Gallagher claims capturing the Ulster title for the first time in 19 years has justified their style of football this year.

Jim McGuinness’ side has come in for some harsh criticism because of their defensively-minded tactics. But Gallagher believes more people are coming round to appreciating it because of the win over Derry last Sunday week.

“Definitely there was a lot of negativity, especially after our first game against Antrim. I think it was a wee bit out of hand.

“But I suppose when people say there is a means to an end it can be someway justified. But we make no apologies, we just play football. We don’t think we are as defensive as people say.

“When we go to training, we don’t say we are just going to concentrate on defending here. You have to work on both sides of the game equally.

“If you are working on attacking in training there is an opposite side to that insofar as the boys are working on defending at the same time.

“They both get equal billing in our training. We’d love to go out at the weekend and score 1-20, whether that happens or not I don’t know.”

Gallagher also believes poor weather was a contributory factor to a couple of Donegal’s dour wins in Ulster. They restricted all four opponents to less than 10 points (Cavan did score 1-8 against them).

He appreciates those low totals are unlikely be replicated in the All-Ireland series, especially against an in-form team like Kildare.

“There is no doubt the opposition is going to improve. 1-8 is the most we have conceded. People need to remember the first two days in particular there was very bad weather and it wasn’t conducive to high-scoring games.

“There is a lot being made of it by the media about how little we have scored but the weather has had a big bearing on it.

“We are well aware that Kildare generally average 17, 18, 19 points. We’d certainly hope to keep them under that. Whether we do or not...”

What kind of game people are going to get on Saturday, he doesn’t quite know, but he’s aware the Lilywhites are the talk of the town.

“I suppose Kildare are the team on the tip of everyone’s tongues because they are on TV so much as well.

“Based on our league game against them, it was 1-5 to 0-8. I don’t know if tactical is the word! One of my friends texted me and said it will be a chess match. I can’t see it being that low-scoring at Croke Park but it will be a game of similar styles and we’ll have to see how it develops.”

Gallagher is conscious of the two-week break being a little shorter than Donegal would have liked.

“It would have been great to have three or four weeks but maybe that would only have meant more celebrating so the fact that it’s two weeks, they got back down to earth very quickly.

“If someone had told us we’d beUlster champions and playing 13 days later we’d have definitely taken it.”

Meanwhile, forward Dermot Molloy is expected to be fit for Saturday after taking a knock in a U21 club game last week.