Donegal's McKenna Cup fate rests on outcome of rules breach hearing

Donegal are still waiting to hear if they’ll face any sanctions for playing 17-year-old Finbarr Roarty against Armagh in their McKenna Cup opener last Wednesday night. 

Ulster GAA officials were scheduled to meet this evening, Sunday, to discuss the issue with potential sanctions in addition to forfeiture of the game including a two-week suspension for the player and an eight-week ban for those deemed to be in charge of the team.

As matters stand Donegal are through to the semi-finals of the competition but a points sanction would have an impact on that. 

“We can’t control the boardroom,” McGuinness said. We’re just going to have to wait and see the outcome of that meeting. I haven’t had any correspondence, maybe the county board has. So we just have to wait and see". 

Meanwhile, McGuinness says a tight tussle with old rivals Tyrone was just what his side needed after their midweek thrashing of Armagh U-20s. 

Donegal went to Omagh on Sunday and even though they completely dominated the first-half exchanges, they only led 0-9 to 0-4 at the changeover. 

Tyrone came out of the blocks like a freight train after the restart and rattled off the first four points to close to gap to one. In thick fog, a real battle of attrition ensued but, at the end, Donegal just about prevailed 0-15 to 1-10. 

“We’re actually happy enough,” said McGuinness. “I thought we played well in the first-half and probably left a lot of scores behind us in that time. 

“We could have had at least two goals. It allowed Tyrone the opportunity to really come back into the game. 

“Our press worked well in that first-half but Niall Morgan was then able to find solutions to that. But for us, as a runout, we were very happy with it. We got great minutes into the legs against really good opposition”. 

In regards to their slow exiting of the blocks at the start of the second stanza, he added: “They kicked the first four points of the second-half and that was disappointing from our point of view. We’d spoken about it at half-time, not letting them start fast. So that was disappointing. 

“But on the whole, to come into Omagh and get the win, we’re pleased. We’re trialling a lot of things so it’s mostly positive leaving here today”.