No change for Donegal

Donegal manager John Joe Doherty has named the same team that disposed of Carlow last weekend for Saturday night's All-Ireland SFC second-round qualifier against Clare (throw-in 7pm).

Doherty watched his side struggle at times during the first half of the Carlow game before they pulled clear for a 2-13 to 1-6 victory at Ballybofey's Sean MacCumhaill Park, also the venue for this Saturday's game.

But with Michael Maguire and Stephen Griffin recovering from minor injuries, Donegal will be able to field an unchanged side against the Banner men.

Ciaran Bonner and Neil Gallagher remain out of the loop due to a breach of discipline in the build-up to the Carlow game.

Doherty said the improvement shown by his players in the second half against Carlow is 'the one positive' they can take into this second round encounter.

Like Carlow, Clare are a Division 4 team and Donegal, with home advantage, are heavily favoured to progress.

Insisting that Clare will be given the respect they deserve, Doherty said: "They may be playing in Division 4 but they put it up to Limerick in the Munster Championship and we saw how close they (Limerick) came last Sunday to toppling Cork in the Munster final.

"The simple fact is that you cannot take any team lightly anymore, and like Carlow last weekend, they will be coming to Donegal to win.

"It is in our own hands now to pick up our performance and move on and make it through to the next round.

"I know from speaking to a number of boys after Saturday's game they felt very nervous after the Antrim defeat and felt under pressure to get a result.

"Hopefully, that nervousness and the fear of losing is out of the system now and they can go out and express themselves and play the type of football they are capable of playing.

"In fairness to them, they did show signs in the second half last Saturday and it is a matter now of picking up where we left off in the second half against Carlow," he told the Donegal Democrat.

DONEGAL (SFC v Clare) - P Durcan; F McGlynn, N McGee, K Lacey; B Dunnion, E McGee, M Maguire; C Toye, K Cassidy; R Kavanagh (capt), L McLoone, D Walsh; C Dunne, M Murphy, S Griffin.