WORK TO BE DONE

Ryan wants more

RYAN MCHUGH believes Donegal are a work in progress despite teeing up an Ulster semi-final with Down thanks to a six-point victory over Derry.

Goals in each half yesterday from Hugh Mcfadden and substitute Cian Mulligan ensured Declan Bonner’s men were always in control in front of 9,356 in Celtic Park.

But a vastly improved Derry did register 13 wides and also hit the post.

Mchugh believes that kind of generosity could come back to haunt the Tir Chonaill men later in the Championship as he said: “There’ll be positives and negatives from every performance and that’s probably one of the negatives from a

Donegal point of view, the fact we allowed Derry so many scoring chances from easy positions.

“Later on in the Championship, when teams start slicking up a bit, that will cost us. We’ll have to put that right for Down the next day.

“We’re not there. It’s extremely hard to get the perfect performance but we’re working on it.

“We weren’t bad at times but we’d be disappointed that we let Derry back into it.

“We did the same against Cavan and that’s going back to the things we need to work on and get right for Down.”

Mcfadden’s early goal fired Donegal 1-04 to 0-1 ahead and while Derry rallied, the brilliance of Michael Murphy and Paddy Mcbrearty ensured the home side were never able to get closer than five points.

Mchugh (inset) added of their next opponents: “We knew coming up here that Derry had extremely good footballers and Division Four doesn’t recognise how good they actually are.

“Same for Down, they’re an extremely good team with extremely good footballers.

“I got to know a few of them up in Jordanstown, they’re top footballers so we’ll have to be at our best to produce the performance we need to beat them.”

Derry manager Damian Mcerlain was left frustrated at the final whistle but said his players had restored some pride following their relegation to Division Four.

“We started sluggishly and that might just be that step up from playing Division Three and not having game practice at that level,” said Mcerlain.

“We will not be as sluggish next time out because we have that game played at Championship pace, in the heat – we have that under our belt.”