Donnelly hoping MacCumhaills can give a positive account against the champions

By Michael McMullan

MacCUMHAILLS’ manager Jamesie Donnelly is fully aware of the Setanta challenge but hopes his young side can give a positive account of themselves on home soil on Saturday.

They face the reigning champions in the semi-final of the Donegal Senior Hurling championship, with Burt taking on St Eunan’s in the second part of a double header at MacCumhaill Park.

Setanta were convincing winners when the sides met in the group stages with MacCumhaills beginning to introduce new blood from their underage production line.

“It’s a different ball game playing senior,” Donnelly said.  “We’ve had a very, very good period of underage coming into the club and underage success.

“We got to an Ulster A minor final but there are light years of a difference between minor and senior.”

Donnelly has a close to dozen players, in their late teens, part of the squad to will run out against Setanta on Saturday.

“It’s great that we have them,” he added. “There are still a few senior players knocking around and driving things on, but we are a very youthful team.

“Saturday is going to be a huge challenge. Setanta have been the team of the last decade really and they’re going to be very hard to stop. It’s a semi-final and we feel we deserve to be there.”

MacCumhaills lost narrowly against St Eunan’s and feel they didn’t do themselves justice against Burt.

“The last time we played Setanta, they were at a different level,” Donnelly summed up of their 2-23 to 0-13 defeat.  “We’ll be hoping that we can give them a better game of it come Saturday.”

MacCumhaills have been churning out underage titles since they pulled their coaching structure together.

Earlier this season, the U12s took part in the Sean Mellon Festival of hurling in Na Magha where they hurled against teams from other counties, including Blackrock from Cork.

It’s an indication of what is to follow and they are the current U16 champions in Donegal.

Short term

In the short term, they have the players who have stepped out of minor now in with the senior ranks.

“There are still a lot of senior players knocking around, great club men and they’re obviously trying to guide the boys, which is very important as well,” Donnelly added.

“There are no real expectations on us on Saturday. We’re just going to have to see which way we handle this. No matter what happens on Saturday, we’ll take huge learnings from it.

“When you have so many young players on a team, anything can happen on the day.

“There’s a lot of good talent and we’re hoping we can put our best foot forward and give a real good count of ourselves.”