Kevin Cassidy: Donegal need to blood youth

RISK….Rory Gallagher should give some younger players a shot against Fermanagh

AFTER a longer wait than they have been used to in recent years, the Donegal footballers enter the Ulster Championship fray this weekend. It has been a long spell out of action for them and I’m sure they are champing at the bit to get stuck into it.

Having been drawn in the preliminary rounds over the last few years, it is hoped that the later start to the Championship campaign might suit this Donegal team in the long run.

Heading into this week’s game they will be raging hot favourites and will be expected to take care of Fermanagh with relative ease. Being in that position is never easy for players, you are expected to just turn up and perform with little fuss, but it doesn’t always work like that.

All the talk over the last two weeks within the camp would have been about Fermanagh but naturally those players and even management would have had one eye on Monaghan at the weekend.

Due to the formation of the draw, that game, should it materialise, could have a huge bearing on the direction their season takes, so it’s only natural that it should be somewhere in the back of their minds.

Being at home is a massive boost for Donegal. If they had to go to Enniskillen then perhaps the possibility of a shock might be a little higher but being on home soil should be enough to see them avoid a potential banana skin.

Credit where credit is due, I feel Fermanagh have made great strides over the past two seasons and they are on the right path, but to topple a team with the experience that Donegal possess might just be a bridge too far.

Donegal need a solid performance from this outing without setting the place on fire. They need to use this game to give some of their older players some gametime to ready them for the tougher battles that lie ahead.

When we look at the older group of players a lot of them have been idle for some time either through injury or being minded by a the management. Colm McFadden, Frank McGlynn, Karl Lacy, Neil Gallagher etc have all been out for spells this season, so if that is the road Donegal are heading down then these guys need some action.

Personally I would like to see Rory go with youth and give some of the next generation an opportunity as I feel this may his best chance of success going forward but the signs are that he will stick with the older brigade.

Although we are not blessed with an abundance of serious young talent coming through we have a few and a game against this up-and-coming Fermanagh side would do wonders for their confidence.

At times I feel young players are a little too timid. By that I mean that they question their own ability and are happy just to be part of it as opposed to saying to themselves ‘hold on a minute here, I’m better than this guy or that guy’ and go and show the manager how good they actually are.

We have a few lads who I would like to see bite the bullet and put their best foot forward this year.

I like the look of young Ciaran Thompson and then you have two lads from my own club, Micheal Carroll and Ciaran Gillespie.

These young lads are as good as what’s out there in Donegal but I haven’t seen that real self belief from them as of yet. Young Gillespie will probably get the nod at corner back and most will say that it’s good for him to get the start in the corner as there might not be as much pressure on him, but take it from me he is the best centre back in Donegal at the minute so I would love to see him play there.
For Donegal to progress this year they need to place utter faith in these guys and play them in the pivotal positions. For me it has always been a case of if you are good enough you are old enough and these young lads should back themselves to dislodge some of the older lads that have been there for quite some time now.

A positive day out for Donegal would be to get the win and to play three of four of these young guns from the start.

I don’t expect the game itself to be a cracker. I feel Fermanagh will come out and have a real go but in order for them to beat Donegal they will need to score at least two goals because they won’t out-point Donegal and to be honest I can’t see that happening.
I’ll go with Donegal by five and then they can fix both eyes on Monaghan.
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