McHugh bridges 11-year gap to return to the season’s biggest Sunday

ELEVEN years is a long time but Ryan McHugh is glad to be back preparing for the biggest Sunday of the year.

It has been an exciting few weeks with Ryan and his wife Bridget becoming parents to their son Senan, who was born before their quarter-final win over Monaghan.

Ryan was part of the Donegal minor team in 2012 when Michael Murphy lifted Sam. It was a minor team that included his cousin Eoin and Hugh McFadden from the current senior group.

Within weeks of their minor exit to Derry, McHugh was called into the senior panel and scored 2-2 against Dublin in the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final win.

Speaking after Sunday’s win over Meath, he was already looking towards a rematch with Kerry who edged Donegal in his first final appearance.

“It’s unbelievable, it’s a little cliched, but that’s what we came up to do, to get over the line,” he said.

“I was a kid in 2014 and you think you’re going to get to semi-finals and finals every year.

“It’s been a long time, but it’s great to be back but we have to make the most of it now hopefully.”

It was Donegal’s use of the booming kick-out over the top that led to their 2014 goal threat that sunk Dublin but when Kieran Donaghy intercepted a short Paul Durcan kick-out in the final, it was the tipping of the scales.

Donegal’s semi-final performance last weekend was convincing with goals from Oisín Gallen, Ciarán Moore and Conor O’Donnell turning the screw.

“Off the top of my head, we had a lot of boys got on the score sheet,” McHugh said, pointing to their impressive 3-26 tally.

“It’s not going to matter much in the final but we’ll just have to go and do it again.

“The new rules, I think, suit teams, to (help put up big scores so we’re just trying to be as good as we can every day, in terms of attacking and defending.”

Donegal go into the final on the back of a 10-game journey that included retaining the Anglo Celt Cup via the Ulster preliminary round.

Tyrone inflicting a rare defeat in Ballybofey in the All-Ireland group stages, leaving them needing a preliminary quarter-final with Louth.

They also needed to dig themselves from Monaghan’s grips at half-time in the quarter-final.

“You never want to find yourself in that situation,” McHugh said. “Calling a spade a spade, in the quarter-final when we ran off at half-time, Rory’s (Beggan) two-pointer put them seven points up, so, no, it didn’t look good.”

After regrouping, a 15-minute spell, helped by Michael Langan’s goal, shot Donegal on their way to victory.

“I think, to be fair to this team, over the last two years when we have found ourselves in that situation, we’ve dug deep.

“Galway in the semi-final last year, the one that maybe stands out that we didn’t.

“We went in at half-time (in Sunday’s semi-final) five points up and we thought we were in a good position.

“We knew Meath were going to come out and they did, they got the first point of the second half.

“Thankfully we got to grips with the game then and I think we’ve seen it out brilliantly.”

Dáire Ó Baoill and Patrick McBrearty came off the bench to score, taking Donegal’s tally of scorers to 12 on the day. Having a range of names on the scoresheet is something they have done consistently this season under Jim McGuinness,

“It’s great,” McHugh said about playing on a team with a range of scoring options.

“I think that’s the modern game, every team has to be fit to do that if they’re going to win big games, in Croke Park especially.

“You need threats coming from everywhere and thankfully we have that at the minute.

“From our full-back line to our full-forward line, everyone’s fit to score and I think we’ve shown that all year, but we need to do it on final day.”

Check out this week’s Gaelic Lives review show, including interviews with Malachy O’Rourke, Ryan McHugh and Jim McGuinness.