How Donegal healed friction to take biggest ever hurling scalp

The Donegal hurlers’ win over Kerry in Letterkenny on Sunday is regarded as their biggest ever.

Donegal manager Mickey McCann. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile

Donegal hurlers are used to being the poor relation when it comes to GAA within the county.

Jim McGuinness’ footballers and even the ladies senior side in recent times have bossed the column inches and the airwaves when it comes to local media coverage.

However, the Donegal hurlers’ win over Kerry in Letterkenny on Sunday has suddenly put them front and centre.

The Joe McDonagh championship outfit travelled to the north-west at the weekend as hot favourites to topple the NHL Division 2 newbies.

However, a stunning second-half display from the hosts meant that they’d prevailed 5-14 to 3-16 by the time the dust eventually settled in Letterkenny.

More remarkable still is that they trailed by 2-1 to 1-10 at the midpoint. Yes, there was a breeze but to lay the blame for the Kindom’s crumbling there would be doing Donegal a massive disservice.

Both manager Mickey McCann and Galway native Michael Donoghue quoted odds of 18/1 after when attempting to put the significance of this victory into context.

Tribesman Donoghue hurls for Setanta but resides in Glenties, home to Jim McGuinness as well as a scatter of his Donegal senior footballing squad.

The parish’s GAA team Naomh Conaill have been the county’s dominant force for the last 20 seasons.

But they, like the majority of clubs in west Donegal, don’t field a hurling team so no doubt Donoghue will be the unlikely centre of attention there this week too.

“It’s a massive result for us,” Donoghue explained. “It’s a hundred years since a Munster team was up here so to beat them is special.

“We felt coming into the game we were in with a shout. This will raise eyebrows elsewhere but not in our group."

Donegal will no doubt someday erect a statue of Jim McGuinness at their state-of-the-art Training Centre in Convoy.

But Mickey McCann’s impact on the game of hurling in Donegal is just as impressive - albeit in a different capacity.

Since coming on board in 2017, he has galvanised the historic friction between the county’s most successful clubs, Burt and Setanta.

Some 17 of the weekend’s panel are supplied by the aforementioned two alone. But McCann, a Burt native himself, has developed real harmony in the group over the last eight seasons.

Carndonagh and St Eunan’s are now putting it up to the top dogs while Dungloe, just down the road from Glenties, have Cork man Cormac Hartnett to thank for the game’s infiltration of the predominantly Gaelic football scene in that end of the county.

Dungloe now have hurling teams playing at U-8, U-10, U-12, U-14, U-16, Minor, U-21 and Senior level, as well as a recently established U-16 camogie team.

The early fruits of that labour now can been seen on the Donegal hurling squad list as James Hartnett proudly takes his place at No. 29.

To the uninitiated, it might not seem much, but it’s a very significant inclusion.

McCann probably put it best into perspective on Sunday when qualifying just what the taking of Kerry’s scalp means for the current Nickey Rackard Cup holders.

"They were hot favourites coming into the match because we were 18-1 or something like that.

"Kerry is a team pushing to win a Joe McDonagh Cup so nobody gave us a chance. But deep down we believed that we could take them.

"I think a lot of people came here today to see Kerry hurling, but I hope they now know that Donegal can hurl a bit too."

It was a win that could have huge implications for Donegal’s season, but McCann knows the job isn’t finished yet.

"It’s a day we’ll never forget. We’ll enjoy the result, but we have to keep ourselves grounded because we probably need another point in the bag to make sure we keep our heads above water.

“This is great, it’s a brilliant day. But we have to make sure that it counts for something when all is said and done at the end of the league”.