By Shaun Casey

DERRY were handsome winners over Donegal when the pair last locked horns just three weeks ago, but boss Johnny McGarvey insists his side won’t be complacent this weekend when they clash with the Tir Chonaill County in the first round of the championship.

That was a winner-takes-all battle at the bottom of the Division Two table, with Derry securing their status with that final day win while Donegal slid through the trap door and will play Division Three hurling next season.

McGarvey puts the league mismatch down to a bad day at the office if nothing else for Donegal, and is expecting a reaction as both counties get their Christy Ring Cup campaigns up and running.

“It’s always something that you worry about, but if I’m honest, we have enough experienced heads in our team that really it shouldn’t be an issue,” said McGarvey on the matter of complacency ahead of the championship opener.

“We don’t think it will be anything like the game a couple of weeks ago. Donegal, I’m sure of their own admission, were probably as bad as they’ve ever been and I don’t see them being as poor as that again so I don’t think complacency will be an issue for us.

“They’ll be hurt by it because there was nothing in the build up that would have suggested for a second that the match would have been as it was.

“I think people can get a wee bit caught up when it turns out that way.

“In my opinion, it will be a point here or a point there this weekend and people might think that Derry were over-confident but that won’t be the case. It’s more a case that Donegal were so poor the last day.”

The Oakleaf County have competed in three of the last four Christy Ring Cup deciders, losing to Kildare last season, and getting back to Croke Park will be one of the ambitions for McGarvey and his team during the championship.

But the Derry boss insists his side won’t be looking too far ahead or taking their eye off the ball. They have a difficult start with an away day trip to London splitting two home encounters against Donegal and Meath.

“We’ll just have to navigate our way through it,” McGarvey continued. “We have Donegal at home in the first round which is tricky enough we feel, then we’re away to London and we’ve been there before so that’s a really tricky game.

“Then we have Meath at home again and those three games are going to be very, very difficult. I know it’s the old cliché but we’ll literally be taking it one game at a time.

“We’ll hopefully get over Donegal, we’re travelling to London five days later and we’ll take it from there,” he added.