KEVIN CASSIDY: Long live the club

IT wasn’t to be for our young guns in Gaoth Dobhair as they went down to a well-oiled Glenties machine in last Sunday’s Donegal county final.

Going into the game, we knew Naomh Conaill were hot favourites but we thought we might be able to make a contest out of it.

Although Sunday’s result was disappointing, we will take it as a learning process because we are going through a bit of a rebuild at the minute.

Glenties, on the other hand, were extremely impressive and I’d say it’s the best I’ve seen them play in quite some time. I was critical of how they approached the St Eunan’s game in the semi-final when they were ultra-defensive, but credit where it’s due they went all out attack last weekend.

I get frustrated with teams when they out their players in straitjackets especially when they have bundles of ability. It’s was great to see the Glenties lads being able to express themselves even though I’d came at our expense.

Martin Regan’s men now get the ticket to go into the Ulster campaign and, based on last week’s performance, they will fancy their chances.

There are a lot of big hitters in there this year so it should be a cracking competition.

Naomh Conaill now play Gowna from Cavan in two weeks’ time, who themselves has a big win last weekend wining the Cavan final by 15 points.

Both teams will head into that game full of confidence, so we could be in for an excellent game of football.

I’ve gone on record here before stating that the Ulster Club competition is my favourite one of them all because it offers so much in terms of quality and excitement.

Like I said earlier, there are some serious teams in it this year and a lot of them will have serious aspirations that stretch further than winning the Ulster Club.

On paper, we could have three or four teams in Ulster who look like they could be good enough to win the competition outright, so we are in for a brilliant few weeks of action.

I have spoken about this before, but there is just something different about the club championships as opposed to the county set up.

People have more of a connection to it and all you have to do is look around social media on a Monday morning to see what it means to clubs as they celebrate their wins.

We are on the correct path with the split season as it puts our club football in the shop window a lot more. All you have to do is to look at the likes of the Tyrone Club Championship to understand the kind of product we could have if it’s promoted properly.

Long live the club.