PAUL BRENNAN recovered from a bout of ‘flu to play his part in Donegal’s Dr McKenna Cup success over Tyrone in Armagh last night.
The Bundoran clubman had made a competent start to 2018 before the ailment but was back to his best last night in the 1-16 to 1-12 win at the Athletic Grounds, scoring two fine points – one in each half.
“Some days they got wide, some days they go over. Thankfully they went over today,” he modestly said afterwards. ”
“I picked up the flu a couple of weeks ago, so this was my first night out. It was good to get a run out and get the lungs opened up again, and get ready for the league again next weekend.”
The McKenna Cup it may be and Declan Bonner’s side certainly have bigger fish to fry in both the short and medium term, but last night’s victory was Donegal’s first trophy since the 2014 Ulster success under Jim McGuinness.
And with a deluge of new players, Brennan included, it can only bode well for the young panel.
“It’s great to win anything,” he added. “From the last time Donegal won Ulster, there’s not too many men in there that have the medals. Any time you win a medal with Donegal, you have to be happy.”
Perhaps the most impressive facet of Donegal’s four-point win was the way they kicked on in the final quarter. Tyrone had got back level at 1-10 to 1-10 on 46 minutes – having been five points down at one stage – and had introduced some of the heavy artillery in the form of Mattie Donnelly, Peter Harte, Cathal McShane and Niall Sludden.
Donegal, managed to outscore the Red Hands though 0-6 to 0-2 from then on with Brennan joining Niall O’Donnell and Michael Murphy on the scoresheet with those late points.
It was perhaps the learning curve in operation with Donegal have come up short in their opening three Allianz League Division 1 outings against Kerry, Galway in Dublin despite being right in the mix till the bitter end.
“I thought maybe in the last few games, that there were periods when we let other teams get on top of us,” Brennan said. “We were trying to cancel that out tonight, and when they had their purple patch, we needed to kick on ourselves.
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“We did that, and it’s just good to get the win in the end. At the end of the day, you don’t pick up points by losing games. You need to start winning games, no matter if it’s the McKenna Cup, league or challenge games. You need to get that winning mentality.
“We said it after the last game against Dublin, that there would be no more losing. We really have to kick on from here, and we have set a benchmark for ourselves.
“People might say the Tyrone team that was put out wasn’t their strongest team but anyone that started for them would be on most teams in Ireland. It was two teams that really went at each other and it made for a good game.
“Knowing that feeling where we just had to kick on with the likes of Niall there and Michael who came in and kicked the scores. We knew we couldn’t let another one slip, and we knew it was time to step up right away, rather than wait five or ten minutes and let someone else do it.
Everyone kind of put their hand up and said that they would take it on.”
