Four Masters go one better than last season

By Michael McMullan and Matthew Wilson

SATURDAY marked another winning chapter in the recent story of Four Masters’ development as they won a first league title since 2010.

Their victory makes up for losing last year’s decider to Termon and represents a considerable boost as they now turn their attention to the championship.

Four Masters host Killybegs in Round One before making the trip to Kilcar, while rounds three and four are yet to be drawn.

The Donegal Town club have been making a name for themselves with how they moulded their underage production line into their successful Ulster minor winning team.

They’ve also backboned the successful Abbey Vocational School team and have a number of players who pushed into the Donegal U20 ranks.

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Some caught the eye of Jim McGuinness but the club’s bigger picture is getting back into the Dr Maguire Cup conversation.

That’s why winning the league with Saturday’s victory over Dungloe is an important brick in the wall.

While they were without Kevin Muldoon, Seanán and Turlough Carr, who are playing in the US, Four Masters still managed to land the Division One league title.

“It was a great win for us and we had our reserve side earlier who won as well so two cups in one evening is a big lift for us,” said Barry Monaghan, assistant manager to Barry Dunnion.

“We’re not ladened down with cups in Four Masters so it was very satisfying. The performance itself, if you were to pick holes in it then you could probably pick a lot. We didn’t make things easy on ourselves.

“Fair play to Dungloe, they never stopped playing and there were two points in it at the end, it was fairly tense but we were just glad to come out on the right side of it.”

Push ahead

Four Masters left by three points at half-time in Glenties but Dungloe were back on level terms as the game ticked into the last five minutes.

With the game hanging in the balance, Four Masters rattled off three successive points to see themselves home.

“We did have a lot of possession but we just weren’t getting the scores and we weren’t keeping the scoreboard ticking,” Monaghan added of their second half-battle.

“When you’re playing against a team like Dungloe who are having a very good season, they were always going to come back at us.

“That was the fear and that’s what happened but fair play to our boys, they got a bit of composure and Tomás Carr hit a two-pointer near the end which was a big score.

“That gave us a bit of breathing room coming into the last few minutes. Dungloe probably needed to go for goal and they blasted one over the bar at the very end.

“It could have very easily gone underneath the bar but that’s the way these things go and we were lucky to come away with the win.”