Leitrim V Donegal

[pairc sean]

Seanie - best of luck on Sunday; will be over there to lend a shout for ye!

[Rois]

Will be down to watch the match tomorrow - first time watching Leitrim for me and looking fwd to it. 

[Fishead_Sam]

Will be down to watch the match tomorrow - first time watching Leitrim for me and looking fwd to it. 

Leitrim crowd are great craic and friendly bunch, Carrick a smashing down, youll like it (maybe - they a hardy bunch to beat @ home)

[J70]

I see RTE are tipping Leitrim to put us out of our misery.

More of that please! We're always better with something to prove.

[J70]

Donegal apparently lining out as named!

[J70]

Apparently Adrian Sweeney isn't in Carrick-on-Shannon tonight.

[J70]

Half-time - Donegal lead by 1-5 to 0-6

We're lucky to be still in the match. Karl Lacey kept us in it almost single-handedly at times. We're getting hammered at midfield, but the changes in the forwards, leaving just Devenney and McMenamin inside and moving Kavanagh and Bradley more towards midfield have worked in the last ten minutes. The swap of Paddy Campbell and Neil McGee has dampened some of Maxwell's influence too.

Leitrim lost Colin Regan, who was having a great game and causing Donegal huge problems. Throw in the penalty miss, which was immediately followed by 1-1 for Donegal and the game has changed very quickly.

We need to seriously up it for the second half.

[J70]

1-11 apiece at the end of normal time. Looked like Donegal would hold out, but a spilled high ball was hammered home in the seventh minute of stoppage time. Donegal can have no complaints - we started appallingly and hit eleven wides, many of them very poor, to Leitrim's two, when we should have pulled away.

We have to play extra time without the injured Devenney too. This could go either way.

[J70]

Final score 1-16 to 1-14

Not a great performance, but the lads dug deep and ground it out in the end. The concerns about midfield and the half-backs remain, while Paddy Campbell may find it hard to keep his place given Neil McGee's performance when switched onto Maxwell. We'd want to avoid the bigger guns for another week if possible to allow some of the bruises and injuries to heal, as today's performance would not be good enough.

Turning point definitely the period in the second quarter where McIvor made the switches and Durcan's penalty save was immediately followed by a goal and a point for Donegal. At 1-6 to 0-4 to Leitrim, it would probably have been game over.

[J70]

McIvor just said on the radio that he not heard from Adrian Sweeney and couldn't comment on his absence!

[Fishead_Sam]

Now ya believe us on the right side of the Shannon that Leitirm pure hardto beat. They some battlers.

[45GoneShort]

Just in from the game - after having tens minutes to calm down after the referees display.  Same old story for us we didn't beat ourselves - the referee beat us the number of times maxwell caught ball and was fouled was unreal but no frees!!! I'm not one for giving out about referees but its very hard to take.  This is crushing result for Leitrim players who despite the amateurish/lazy pundits in the national media are a good team who in the last six years haven't got that bit of luck in a game you need to win.  Great display against the National League Championships.  I don't want to hear Donegal people coming on saying they played bad because if it was a bigger county you were playing you'd say you were lucky.  The fact is you cleaned us out at midfield and we had our half forward line playing far too deep resulting in us loosing numerous balls in build up play. 

[J70]

I wasn't at the game, so I cannot really comment on Kinneavy's treatment of Maxwell. According to the Highland commentary, Neil McGee had a good game on him after the switch, although they did comment on one or two fouls he got away with, including what looked like a lift off the ground, if I remember correctly. There seemed to be a few fouls let go up the other end too however, but again, I'm reliant on radio commentary. And given that some, including RTE, were tipping Leitrim to win this, I wouldn't think that people have been disrespecting Leitrim.They also received praise all around after the Galway game. People seem to think they're a good side, but a bit lacking in forwards. On Highland Radio, Martin McHugh was saying that your full-back line is one of the, if not the, best full-back lines in the country. As to your comment about Donegal people's excuses, from what I was listening to, we were awful for the first 25 minutes, when Karl Lacey almost single-handedly kept us in it. The couple of minutes involving the penalty miss and the Donegal 1-1 were the decisive minutes of the game, in that had Leitrim scored the penalty and we hadn't broke for those two scores, you probably would have won. There is no question that we were lucky to be ahead at half-time, but had Devenney taken his chance it could have been more. I am disappointed that we didn't push on after half-time and finish out the game, however. That does not bode well for possible meetings against better teams. If you think that is disrespectful, I think you're fooling yourself. Leitrim have to earn the right to be considered a top-level side, as do we, because despite the league win, on current form, missing players or no missing players, we are nowhere close.

[Barney]

I'm not one for giving out about referees

BUT

Same old story for us we didn't beat ourselves - the referee beat us

Seriously though I feel very sorry for Leitrim. Everybody gets a scare in Carrick and they deserve a big name scalp for their efforts over the last few years but its hard to keep coming back from these knocks.

[aodhruadh]

What a relief. The Championship season stumbles on... hopefully the performances improve from here...

Draw will be interesting - Id like to see us avoid Armagh, Mayo and Meath. If we can past next weekend (with tired legs) then a few bigger names should be back for the last 12 of the all ireland.

Rumour is that Sweeney missed the game due to a delayed flight from the US - though a more plausible reason would be that he didnt get named in the line up despite the forwards being decimated by injury.

Fair play to them for digging it out in Extra Time.