BONNER KEEPS THE DONEGAL BOUNCE GOING

DECLAN BONNER’S Donegal made it two wins from two yesterday, beating Down 1-17 to 0-10 at Páirc Esler. The game’s only goal came late on through Caolan McGonagle, with 26 minutes gone in the second half, but Donegal never looked in trouble throughout the 70 minutes. ‘We knew that they were going to be set up fairly defensively and we had to work around that,’ Bonner (below) said. ‘But I thought the lads worked really hard – in the first week of January that’s all you can ask for. ‘We know that we have certain qualities when we’re in possession of the ball but we also know that we have to tighten up defensively.’ They now host Cavan on Wednesday night at MacCumhaill Park, with the winners of that game topping Section A. Cavan had little trouble in dispatching Queen’s University Belfast at Ballycullen. New manager Michael Graham will have been impressed by his side as they scored 17 points, only conceding three. Meanwhile, in Clones, St Mary’s salvaged a late draw with three unanswered points from Shane McGuigan (two) and Aaron Boyle. The Farney County’s cause wasn’t helped by the sin-binning of Ryan McAnespie late on while Barry McGinn netted the game’s only goal in the 50th minute. At Glenavy, Armagh cruised to a 2-21 to 1-10 win over Antrim while Derry, who survived a brush with the new rules when Emmet Bradley was sin binned in the second half, secured a 3-9 to 2-8 victory over Fermanagh. Elsewhere, Tyrone beat Ulster University by 2-14 to 1-9 at Healy Park.