GALLAGHER CONCERNED AT DONEGAL’S ‘LACK OF FIGHT’
RORY GALLAGHER claimed that his team had lacked fight as Donegal crashed out of the Ulster championship yesterday. On a humbling day for the Tír Conaill men, they fell to their heaviest Championship defeat in four years since their four-goal mauling by Mayo in 2013. As a result they have missed out on what would have been a seventh straight Ulster final appearance. But what will disappoint Gallagher is how uncompetitive his team were before an attendance of 22,609. At one stage they were looking at a double digit defeat as they trailed by 13 points early in the second half. ‘We are very disappointed to be beaten in the manner that we were. We were well and truly beaten. We showed a lack of fight as well which was disappointing,’ lamented Gallagher afterwards, as his team now enter the ‘A’ — and significantly more difficult — side of the qualifier draw. After losing nine players from last year’s squad in the close, Gallagher conceded there would be no swift return to the top for Donegal but insisted that fielding a new-look team — six of yesterday’s starting team faced Tyrone for the first time — could not be used as an excuse. ‘We didn’t want to accrue experience like today. We have to face it. That is the ultimate test of any team. Very few teams just arrive on the scene and get success instantly. We have to knuckle down now. ‘We’re well aware that of the team that played in 2012 there were only three or four starting today but that does not disguise that today was a very disappointing display. We can’t hide away from that. ‘We showed a lack of cohesion, a lack of energy, a lack of discipline on the field but we have to learn from it,’ added Gallagher. Meanwhile, Tyrone manager Mickey Harte hailed the performance of match referee David Gough – a late replacement for David Coldrick – who called just 23 frees yesterday. ‘He had a certain standard of refereeing there which the players caught onto pretty quickly. On other days those turnovers would have been ‘fouls’ but he didn’t give them as fouls, and our players played in that particular way because of that. Donegal had the chance to do the same thing, we didn’t get them handy either.’