BY RYAN FERRY

DONEGAL senior football manager Declan Bonner has confirmed that Michael Murphy and Odhrán MacNiallais will be available for Sunday’s crucial Ulster SFC quarter-final with Derry.

Murphy was replaced in the first half of the preliminary round with Down, while MacNiallais didn’t play in that match as he had a hamstring injury.

Oisin Gallen, Daire Ó Baoill, and Andrew McClean were all absent but they should come back into the reckoning for the Derry match.

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Bonner said: “Yeah, all good. Listen, at the minute we’ve just one session to go, touch wood we should have a full bill of health, so looking forward to having everybody back.

“The only two players that are not available are Kieran Gillespie and Jeaic Mac Ceallbhuí, who are coming back from injury. But the rest of the guys are okay.”

Bonner has shipped some criticism over the last two weeks for playing Murphy against Down with some pundits suggesting he should have held his captain back.

The Na Rossa clubman is adamant that he wouldn’t have played Murphy if he didn’t get the green light from his medical team.

“Look, everybody is entitled to their opinion but I suppose you need to go by the facts and the facts of the matter were, and are, that you have to go through a rigorous protocol to get yourself in contention, number one, if there are any lingering doubts.

“Protocols are in place with the team doctor and head of physios, Cathal Ellis, so those guys will come to me and either say he’s available for selection or he’s not available for selection, that’s just the way it is.

“That’s not just for Michael Murphy, it’s for anybody else too.

“There are a lot of injuries at the moment, you see that week in and week out with a lot of soft tissue injuries especially. But at the minute we are quite hopeful that we have everyone available, bar the two lads that I’ve mentioned.”

Donegal are sure to face a tough test against Derry, who have won their five games to date this year.

Rory Gallagher’s side were very impressive in the National League and won Division Three at a canter.

Bonner has watched Derry’s games and is impressed with where they are at.

“They are chalking up big scores. There are always good footballers in Derry. If you look at their college system and their underage system, they’ve always been strong.

“I battled against them at underage level right the way through and they were always well organised, always good footballers.

“They have done well. There’s no doubt Derry are a top 10 team and they should always be up around there. The club structure in the county is very strong, a lot of very strong clubs, so it’s no surprise to be quite honest. Our preparation started immediately after we left Newry two weeks ago.”

Derry are managed by Rory Gallagher, who was in charge of Donegal for three seasons between 2015 and 2017.

He has previously worked with a large chunk of the panel, and is involved on the Donegal club scene with Killybegs.

There won’t be much he doesn’t know about the Donegal players but that doesn’t concern Bonner.

“Ah listen that will always come up because he has been involved in the past.

“It doesn’t make any wild difference to be honest. Football has moved on and it is evolving every year.

“We haven’t paid too much heed to that over the last few weeks and we’re just getting our end of it right.

“Yeah we will look at Derry and the challenges that they are going to bring and the threats that they will bring.

“But we need to get our end of it right and that has been the challenge over the last four or five training sessions and we still have a session to go.

“We know it’s going to be a big test, there’s no doubt because Derry are very, very fit and they are well set up and they have a lot of good attacking options so we have got to be ready for a battle.”

READY… Michael Murphy is fit to play against Derry this weekend

RESPECT… Declan Bonner says that the Derry team has to be respected