Derry boss planning all-out attack

Donegal minor captain Ryan McHugh

DERRY minor boss Paul McIver says that there is only one strategy that he can employ in this weekend’s Ulster Minor Football Championship Quarter-final against Donegal, and that is all-out attack.

There are two reason for this. The first is Donegal’s star player Ryan McHugh, and the second is that his team play best when going forward.

McIver, who was part of his father Brian’s back room team during his tenure as Donegal boss, reckons that McHugh is one of the finest talents in Ulster at the minute, and to stop him, Derry must get forward at every opportunity.

“He is one of the best minors I have seen in some time. He is just a natural footballer, he can carry the ball with ease. It looks like he’s going nowhere but there are boys behind him who just can’t catch him,” said McIver.

“I would say that the player he reminds me most of is Brian McGuigan. He must have touched the ball about 50 times last weekend.”

McHugh scored 0-4, two frees, in last weekend’s Ulster MFC preliminary round victory over Cavan, but it was the nine scores that he set up in that game that most impressed McIver.

So how do you stop a natural player like that, who has the talent of Brian McGuigan? Simple, you don’t.

“You just have to play your own game. We have plenty of players who can get scores, and what we want to do is put them on the back foot,” he said.

The full story is in the current issue of Gaelic Life, published Thursday May 24. Buy your copy now in your local newsagent, or click here to purchase the pdf for just 90p.