Donegal duo will return for final

Karl Lacey and Rory Kavanagh will be back for the Ulster final, Donegal manager Jim McGuinness has confirmed.

The pair missed today's runaway win over Antrim, but neither has a serious injury, and McGuinness expects to have a full squad to pick from for next month’s provincial decider clash with either Armagh or champions Monaghan.

“Karl hurt his hamstring slightly about eight days ago. He was almost ready to play but we didn’t want to risk him too much. Rory Kavanagh was the same.”

But McGuinness was delighted with the manner in which other players stood up to be counted, particularly after midfielder Neil Gallagher was forced off by injury after 15 minutes.

“Whenever they were needed, Neil Gallagher going off, Rory had a wee problem with his groin and Karl not available, it was nice to see them step up and bring the fight to Antrim.”

“It was good to have everyone back. Thankfully now we have brought back another month in the lead into the Ulster final and that is where we wanted to be at.”

“Karl not being in and the loss of Rory and Neil maybe un-nerved us a bit. And Antrim played very well. They had a game plan and they were looking to his scores from long range and they were penetrating well.

“I said in the lead-in to the game that they kicked 1-10 in the first half against Fermanagh: that is sometimes lost on people.”

Antrim manager Liam Bradley was not surprised that Donegal made an explosive start to the second half, hitting 1-4 in the opening 10 minutes.

“They done the same against Derry, scored 1-3 without reply at the start of the second half,” said Bradley.

“We kept the defence tight and counteracted, Tomás McCann got a free, we could have got another couple of frees before that. Some of their tackling was reckless enough and the referee was lenient.

“But at the end of the day, the two goals killed us. If you give away the ball, you don't get away in this game and that's what we did for the two goals. A team like Donegal is going to hurt you when you do that. “