St.Mary’s boss, Gavin McGilly believes that the Dr McKenna Cup has worth for university team despite his side’s 25 point hammering at the hands of Armagh in Round One. 

Many have spoken strongly against county teams not realising their players to the university teams, McGilly echoes the sentiment but it’s not something that bothers him ahead of their Sigerson opener at NUIG.

“It’s every player’s aspiration when they pull on a club jersey to go on and pull on their county one too. We don’t want to stand in the way of any player getting the chance to play for their county,” McGilly added.

Despite the manner of the Armagh defeat the former Moy, All-Ireland Intermediate winning manager was happy with some sentiments of the game.

“There’s no point painting over it, the first half was a disaster and whatever could have went wrong did go wrong. That second period, that’s what we have to build from, we were a bit more competitive anyway.”

St.Mary’s travel to Clones on Sunday where they will take on Monaghan.

To read the full article alongside previews of each and every Dr McKenna Cup game, a monster feature with Conall Dunne and all the usual article’s, pick up this week’s Gaelic Life, in stores now! 

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