Our struggles were all down to Derry

RELIEVED MCFADDEN’S HIGH PRAISE FOR OPPONENTS

HUGH Mcfadden pointed to the character Donegal showed against “sleeping giants” Derry in Sunday’s nailbiting Ulster quarter-final victory at Maccumhaill Park.

Patrick Mcbrearty hit a stoppage-time winner from 40 metres out to set up an Ulster semi-final encounter with Tyrone at Brewster Park on Sunday.

But not before Derry gave Declan Bonner’s men a serious fright.

Rory Gallagher – the former Donegal manager and All-ireland winning coach – came with a plan and his players executed it to a tee.

The big plus for Donegal is that they held their nerve and the likes of Niall O’donnell, Caolan Mcgonagle and Michael Langan stepped up to the plate with eight points from play between them.

Every one of them was badly needed on an afternoon when Derry hit the post twice, struck the crossbar, had a penalty claim denied, saw a Benny Heron shot blocked and had another goal chance turned away.

Mcfadden said: “One of the things that attracted Rory to Derry was the great standard of player, as you could see with the success in Ulster club competitions.

“They’re a bit of a sleeping giant maybe. They’re a quality team and in Ulster you’ve quality teams like Monaghan, Tyrone and Armagh too – all Division 1 teams.

“It’d be a serious high level. You have to be at your best to come away with a one-point victory. A lot of the credit for how we weren’t that good is because of Derry.

“It might be different watching. It was tough. It got very tactical. We’ve been on the wrong side of a lot of narrow losses so our character showed well.

“They had a good lead in from the League final and were probably preparing for us from a long way out.

“That showed. They kicked some fantastic scores and put in some great performances and we’re just delighted we came out of it by the narrowest of margins.

“For long spells of the game Derry were the better team and we only got in front in injury time.”

Derry brought serious pace, which augurs well for the future, with the likes of Paul Cassidy, Padraig Mcgrogan and Ethan

Doherty very young and with plenty of time for improvement.

Conor Doherty appears a big find, while the Derry bench is packed with young players.

But for Donegal it was a case of job done – just about, following last year’s shock Ulster final defeat by Cavan at the Athletic Grounds.

It looked like they were going to be mugged again, but the home side found a way to win.

This was despite Michael Murphy not starting a first Championship game since 2011, and Kilcar stars, Ryan Mchugh and Patrick Mcbrearty being blocked out of the game for long spells.

“I did have confidence in the team that we could get the win, although it probably didn’t look like that for long spells,” said Mcfadden (left).

“We’ve a few match-winners, though, and no better man than Patrick Mcbrearty. When we needed him the most he stood up.

“We need to be better next week. It’ll be a tough battle in Brewster next

week.”