Fired-up Donegal aiming to bounce back and defy the doubters

Coming into this year’s championship, only Down (10) and Limerick (six) had worse losing runs than Donegal.

Their string of five defeats, dating back to round four in March and stretching to their heavy Division 1 semi-final loss to Dublin has wiped a lot of expectation about the county.

It’s also given rise to claims they are finished as an entity having clocked up too much mileage to withstand the rigours of another Ulster gauntlet, starting against Fermanagh this Sunday, followed by an All-Ireland campaign.

Karl Lacey, 32 this September, shrugs off such suggestions.

“We don’t take it to heart too much. As a player your focus is on yourself. We’d hope to think that we’re at the level every other team is training at.

“A lot of younger lads are pushing every (older) player hard. Having that is massive. If you didn’t have any young lads coming through then you might be thinking differently. But having the likes of Odhran MacNiallais, Ryan McHugh, Ciaran Gillespie, Micheál Carroll, coming through pushing you, is a good thing.“

It’s Jim McGuinness’ belief Donegal were holding back a little in Division 1 but Lacey objects slightly to his former manager’s assessment.

“Jim doesn’t know everything! I think the focus going into the league was just to retain Division 1 status and Rory hasn’t been shy about saying that. We got off to a great start, three wins, and then I think one eye started to go on the Ulster Championship and we took the foot off the pedal a wee bit.

“I’m not saying we didn’t want to win the games; I think we started to maybe up the levels in training in the week leading into a game and we started talking about Antrim and Fermanagh. We got into a league semi-final and I think on that day the gap was between the level of performance of Dublin and ourselves. They were a lot fitter, a lot stronger, and a lot faster. It’s up to us now over the course of the Ulster championship and hopefully in the All-Ireland series to close that gap.”

Lacey reports himself in good shape. Looking back, he believes a lot of his longevity was down to McGuinness’ decision to play him further out the field rather than retain him as a man-marker. Had he stayed in the corner, things might have got ugly, he admits.

“There would have been a few roastings! There would have been a few other lads getting All Stars. Wherever you’re told to play, like, corner-back was the position I started at at county level. I always played half-back, midfield for my club and it’s probably more the position I enjoyed. When Jim came in he played me there and I haven’t looked back since. If Rory Gallagher handed me No. 2 or No. 4 jersey you’d take it.”

Lacey never considered retirement after last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Mayo and the sentiment is shared among the Donegal veterans. “You wouldn’t be doing it otherwise if you didn’t feel we could get up to the highest level again. The signs are there. Even last year, we put in a couple of big performances. Up in Armagh...it wasn’t an easy place to go and we put in a big performance.

“When you play well, there’s no reason why you can’t go out and do it on a bigger stage again. We feel our training levels are very high. There’s great intensity there, great quality of players there. I think going through and winning Ulster titles, and knowing that feeling of winning, it’s very hard to step away from that knowing there’s a possibility it could happen again, which we all believe.”