Donegal ladies star Boyle hoping for home comforts

BY MATTHEW WILSON

DONEGAL senior ladies star Niamh Boyle expressed that home advantage is a big benefit ahead of their Ulster Senior Championship meeting with Tyrone this Sunday at Lifford.

The Donegal senior ladies got their Championship campaign underway last weekend when they made the trip to the Athletic Grounds to face reigning champions Armagh, though they fell to a narrow defeat.

Now Donegal are back in action this Sunday as they play host to Tyrone in their second and final group game of the Ulster Senior Football Championship.

Daly’s charges have already gotten the better of the Red Hand County this term, running out seven-point winners in a league meeting in Aghyaran.

There’s a lot on the line when the two sides take to the field this weekend as a defeat for Donegal would end their hopes of reaching another Ulster Final, while a victory would leave them in a strong position to secure a spot.

Despite defeating them already this year, Boyle is expecting a much changed Tyrone outfit this Sunday and is expecting a big challenge from them when they face-off.

“It’s a massive game and it’s great to get the home advantage. We played Tyrone in the league and we did win well that day but I’d say they will be a very different team on Sunday.

“They’ve had a lot of time to prepare for this game and they’ll definitely have a few players back from injury so we know it’s going to be a big game for us.”

“We’re really looking forward to it. We’re training on Wednesday and we’re training again on Friday so we’ll go through the final preparations and look forward to it.”

Despite the defeat, Boyle saw positives from their play in the contest, with them suffering a heavier loss to the same opponents on two occasions last term.

“We were happy with large parts of the game, it was just the final ball that let us down. We did have three goal chances and they just didn’t come off on the day.

“But there’s a lot of learnings to be taken from it and it was a big improvement on how we played against them last year.

‘Last year they beat us by ten points both times we played them so to bring that down to three points, there’s some positives to take from it.”

Securing the Division Two National League title with a win over Cavan at the beginning of the month will have boosted Donegal’s confidence, and they will take further encouragement from their battling display against Armagh last Sunday.

The 2025 Ulster All-Star acknowledged that the league triumph has provided the side with confidence and momentum, but feels there are still aspects of their game they must improve.

“The league win was a massive boost to give us confidence going into the Armagh game. Going by the Armagh game, we did have large parts of possession but we have areas of the pitch where we need to work on and improve on.

“The League campaign was definitely very positive and it made a big difference going in against Armagh on Sunday. The fact we only had a two week turnaround was great too because it helped us to keep the momentum going.”

With one piece of silverware already in the cabinet for the year, James Daly’s side will now be focused on the next prize on offer in the form of this Ulster Senior Championship.

Donegal last won this cup in 2023, defeating Armagh by four points in the final. Boyle was not involved then, but she did claim an Ulster medal in 2019 when they beat the same opponents by 15 points.

The St Naul’s clubwoman would love to end the wait for a second Ulster crown and, with so many young players in the squad, she believes the experience of a final day itself could be hugely valuable.

“We do have such a younger team now so I’m nearly on the older side of it now. It’d be massive for them younger girls to even get the experience to play in a final.

“They’re really stepping up and pushing the whole thing on. The likes of Katie Dowds there and Ulitah Boyle, who got a start on Sunday and played unreal.

“They bring great energy to the whole thing and they’re really stepping up.”