- All-Ireland Junior Football
- Championship
- Derry v Wicklow
- Sunday, Mullahoran, 2pm
- By Niall McCoy
- DERRY manager Odhran McNeilly has said that they will not be expecting any favours from Wicklow in their crucial final Junior Championship group game on Sunday.
- The Oak Leaf county head to Mullahoran knowing that it’s essentially win or bust when it comes to their ambitions of reaching the semi-finals.
- Derry currently sit third in the table with Limerick and Carlow below them, but with those counties meeting and both enjoying a head-to-head advantage over Derry, the only other outcome that would see the Ulster side progress would be two draws.
- The Garden county are already qualified as group winners, but McNeilly doesn’t expect them to rest players ahead of the semi-finals.
- “They have won three games so they are guaranteed top spot and guaranteed playing fourth in the group,” he said.
- “Will they rest players? Put myself in their shoes and I’d want a wee bit of momentum to bring into the semi-final the week after.
- “Yeah there may be an element of looking after players but it’s hard to beat actually getting out and playing so I doubt they’ll hold too much back.
- “We know we have to look after ourselves but it’s a big ask going to Mullahoran to play probably the best team in the Junior Championship, a side that retained their Division Three status this year and all the rest.
- “It’s going to be a tough ask. It’s a victory or nothing.”
- Derry are in a difficult place courtesy of two one-point losses to Limerick and Carlow, the latter of those arriving last week.
- Rather than bemoan the small margins, McNeilly is taking a more nuanced look at the results.
- “I suppose you’d take those narrow defeats if it meant we came out on the right side of a one-point win this weekend and the ball broke in our favour,” he said.
- “From our point of view, those games were good for a group of players who are trying to learn. Hopefully that experience pays off for us somewhere along the way. Hopefully that’s this weekend.”
- McNeilly also confirmed that Dania Donnelly should be fit to play despite coming off injured in last week’s loss to Carlow.
- “She (Donnelly) should be okay and funny, Aine McAllister is a dual player but has no camogie game on the Saturday so we should have her fresh for the Wicklow game.”