Donegal bench key to good start

SUSANNE White has hailed the depth of Donegal’s squad as the chief reason for their early season progress.

They take their 100 per cent record to Aghyaran on Sunday to face a Tyrone team who have won both their Division Two encounters.

After beating Westmeath in their first game, they had to hang tough to see off a Monaghan side hurting from shipping seven goals against Tyrone.

“Over the last two years, playing Monaghan in the league, it’s always been a tough contest,” White said of last weekend’s victory.

“We expected it to go to the very end and it did. They definitely pressed us hard at times coming out from the back line.

“It’s really important to get off to a good start, we’ve won two from two and all you can really do is just look what’s in front of you.”

White mentions Tyrone’s 4-15 and 7-11 tallies going into Sunday and feels both teams will see themselves as being in the promotion conversation.

“It’s an Ulster derby and there’s the fact that we know they’re in the Ulster Senior Championship this year and that’s coming down the line.

“We just know the form Tyrone have been in, there’s a winning streak there so I’m sure they’re going to be looking forward to playing us as much as we are them.

“I feel like they are going to be a team that are going to be or there thereabouts for a promotion come the next six to seven weeks.

“I think it’s just really important that, yes, we can get three wins from three but we also want to be able to compete with teams like Tyrone.

“I suppose we want to put down a marker for what’s to come later in the season and championship.”

For White, it’s their biggest game so far and potentially the crunch game in the campaign as a whole.

Looking back, they’ll hope to tap into what has gone before.

There is a confidence that their starting 15 and anyone coming in off the bench can put their shoulder to the wheel.

“It was evident against Monaghan,” White said. “Every single one of them was effective and had an impact on the game and that’s massive for us.

“It was a lovely day but the conditions on the pitch were tough on the legs and I just felt like the girls made a massive impact.”

It followed on from the Westmeath game with their substitutes contributing 1-4 in victory.

“When you have a win the week before there’s that momentum and belief in you that you can do it again the week after,” White added.

“I definitely felt that even going into the last 10 or 15 minutes of the game, when Monaghan were really pressing us, we were a lot more controlled on the ball too and made better decisions.

“We mentioned at half time that we lost a lot of ball so we maybe had a bit more protection

“From the game against Monaghan it wasn’t perfect, especially from watching it back. There’s still a lot of things that we need to clean up on over the next few weeks,” White concluded.