Donovan: We can’t be complacent

Sligo captain Ross Donovan had warned his team-mates against complacency in the Big Apple tomorrow.

The teak-tough defender, part of the Sligo team that won in New York five years ago in the campaign that yielded a historic Connacht title, is wary of the challenge posed by their weekend hosts.

“This trip to New York is exciting but it is a championship game and we can’t look past it,” the Eastern Harps clubman explained. “A lot of us were there in 2007 and we know that if you get caught up in the hype you are only codding yourself. New York are there to put an effort in and do a job.”

Despite the fact that New York will, in the main, draw on a collection of emigrants who’ve already experienced inter-county football here in Ireland, Donovan says they have a spirit to match anything in the home country.

“I watched that documentary ‘An Exile’s Home in the Bronx’ and some of these guys are die-hards for their GAA clubs and they may have only been out there for maybe 10 years. Two years ago New York could have beaten Galway if their heads were on, I don’t think they were.”

Former GAA Football All Star nominee Donovan, one of six in Sligo’s starting 15 to have played in Gaelic Park in 2007, said: “It is the likes of us, Sligo, that they are looking to beat. Against us they always seem to get their act together and they try to put in a performance and rattle our cage.”

He hopes Sligo’s improved finish to their Allianz Football League Division Three campaign, a run of wins that consolidated their status, will kick-start their summer.

“Thankfully we had a great finish to the league. We had a hot and cold start but we finished with three wins which is something.”

Meanwhile, this is Sligo forward Mark Breheny’s third New York outing. He goes into the provincial preliminary round tie with an impressive scoring record, having scored 1-3 in 2002 and 0-7 in 2007.