ULSTER UNDER-20 CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL

Donegal v Tyrone

Saturday, Clones, 3pm

By Frank Craig

LUKE Gavigan insists that Donegal’s toughest challenge to date in this season’s EirGrid Ulster U-20 Football Championship is still very much in front of them.

Despite toppling a fancied Monaghan first day out and disposing of a slick Down outfit in last week’s semi-final encounter, the Tir Chonaill skipper has warned his teammates that Tyrone are “a different animal completely”.

Gavigan comes from formidable footballing stock. His dad Luke was a member of the Donegal senior football squad that won the 1992 All-Ireland title.

His uncle Martin was centre half-back on that famous side. Nicknamed ‘Rambo’, he also vice-captained the victorious 1990 Ireland Compromise Rules side that toured Australia.

The MacCumhaill’s clubman says any time Donegal and Tyrone square off, regardless of the level or grade, sparks inevitably fly.

And it’ll be no different this Saturday at St Tiernach’s Park Clones, when the ball is thrown in.

Gavigan explains: “We’d have played Tyrone at u-16 in the Buncrana Cup. We beat them that year. U-17, they got the better of us by a single point in the first round of the championship. But so much has probably changed since then.

“We know they’ll be strong. It’s such a tough province. And Tyrone are a big rival so it should be a brilliant occasion. It’s a massive game. It’ll be physical and there’ll be bite. But we’re just looking forward to it.

“They’ve had two good results too and they had to dig really deep against what was a very good Antrim team in the other semi-final. It’s hard to gauge too much into any of that for either side. So much will just depend on the day.”

Shaun Paul Barrett’s lads have had to dig really deep in their two previous provincial outings. It took extra-time and a penalty shootout to see off the Farney boys while Down pushed Donegal right to the wire last weekend at The Loup.

Gavigan says Tir Chonaill played only in patches in both those wins and that a complete performance, spread over the entire hour, will be needed to down Tyrone.

“We need to find a more complete performance for the entire 60-plus minutes. I suppose we were poor in the first-half the last day. But when we got in at the break we had a good talk. We knew ourselves it wasn’t good enough.

“We had the wind in the first period so we were really disappointed to be going in at half-time without any kind of a lead.

“They dominated in areas and that was a concern. But we really kicked on after half-time.

“There were words from the management team in he dressing room (at half-time) but we knew ourselves it simply wasn’t good enough.

“But the team showed great character to dig out the result. We were just glad to get the win and advance. That was the most important thing.”

Donegal’s efforts are well spread in a side that is prepared to work as hard as possible for each other. But Gavigan says two players in particular so far have gone that little bit further for the cause.

“Everyone stepped up against Down but in particular, Ronan McGeehin and Aaron Doherty. They really dug us out there. Ronan made two unreal saves while Aaron really dragged us back into the game.

“To be fair to Ronan, that’s two games now he’s come to our rescue. He’s a fantastic ‘keeper and we’re lucky to have him. Aaron… everyone knows how much quality he has.”

In both games so far, Donegal have struggled to make first-half breeze advantages count on the scoreboard. But upon reverting to type and that traditional Donegal running game in the second stanza; they’ve fared much better.

Gavigan agrees their main strength has been running the ball and moving it through the hands.

“We know we’re a running side, we seen that against Monaghan as well. We probably forced the ball a little early on against Down. We kicked it and tried to be direct when it just wasn’t on.

“We were much more economic in possession in the second-half. To be fair, both days were difficult ones for football. It was very hard to deliver ball as it just got caught up in the wind, rain and snow and the flight was all over the place.”

As for this week, the player says most of the squad’s time will be spent looking at the opposition and seeing can they identify a weakness.

“The way the weather is it’s been difficult for us to get fields. We’ll meet up and we’ll have a look at Tyrone. Most of the work is long done, fitness wise, at this stage.

“We’ll just look to work on things that we hope can give us the edge and win us the game.”