Donegal must plan without experienced trio
Colm McFadden and Eamon McGee stepped aside in the wake of Donegal’s 1-15 to 1-10 loss to Dublin in August’s All-Ireland quarter-final.
In recent weeks it emerged that Leo McLoone, Odhran MacNiallais, and Anthony Thompson would not be rejoining the panel, at least for the immediate future. Seven of the eight played in the 2012 All-Ireland final win over Mayo — MacNiallais is the exception, having not debuted until 2014.
Donegal, under the management of Declan Bonner, played an U21 selection in their Dr McKenna Cup opener last Sunday — a narrow 2-20 to 4-13 defeat against UUJ, for whom Ryan McHugh grabbed the winning goal against his native county.
Ahead of their Division 1 opener at home to Kerry next month, senior manager Rory Gallagher has 16 new faces in the panel, the majority of whom from the 2014 and 2016 Ulster MFC winning panels.
“I’m delighted with the squad we have,” Gallagher said yesterday. “We’ve been working really hard. We have a lot of youth there and it’s all about moving forward.”
Kavanagh and Toye were the two longest-serving members of the panel, having both appeared initially in the National Football League in 2001.
Toye made his first championship appearance in the 2002 Ulster preliminary round tie against Cavan, while Kavanagh, now 34, appeared for the first time in the championship in the next round, when Down visited Ballybofey in the Ulster SFC quarter-final.
Letterkenny native Kavanagh, who captained Donegal in 2009, retired from inter-county football in January 2015 and spent that summer playing with Donegal Boston. However, he was coaxed back to the county panel last year by manager Gallagher but failed to add to his Ulster titles of 2011, 2012, and 2014 as Tyrone won last year’s provincial decider in Clones. Kavanagh lined out 146 for the county in all.
Toye, the 2006 skipper, has scored five championship goals at Croke Park — more than any other player from Donegal — and come back from a number of career-threatening injuries.
In 2013, Toye missed the entire season having contracted trigeminal neuralgia — a rare facial nerve disorder previously known as ‘suicide disease’ — but returned the following year as Jim McGuinness’s side famously overcame Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final only to lose the final against Kerry.
Beforehand, it was Toye’s goal and point against Kildare that preluded Kevin Cassidy’s dramatic winner in the 2011 All-Ireland quarter-final, which Donegal won 1-12 to 0-14 after extra-time.
It was his first appearance for the county in some 25 months having ruptured an Achilles tendon in a drab qualifier against Clare in 2009. In all Toye, who is 33, made 163 appearances for Donegal.
“They’re big losses in experience,” said Gallagher. “It’s been outrageous; the commitment they’ve given to Donegal. We have been very fortunate with all of these players.
“Christy and Rory are two of a kind. We’ve become so accustomed to seeing them in training and in games. They owe no one anything and they’ve enjoyed their careers, especially the last few years.”
Walsh, who had trials at Luton Town FC in his time, was a second-half substitute in the 2012 win over Mayo and first lined out for Donegal in the 2008 Ulster SFC.
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