AS ANOTHER campaign dawns, Declan Bonner says Donegal must aim for the ‘ultimate goal’ – winning an All-Ireland – in 2020.
Bonner has guided Donegal to back-to-back Ulster titles in the last two summers.
Heading into the third year of his second stint as manager, Bonner – whose team is back in Division 1 again – is thinking big.
“That’s the highest goal and the highest bar you can set, but it has to be there,” Bonner told Donegal Daily/Donegal Sport Hub in a lengthy interview.
“Ultimately, the one goal that every player has is…Dublin have done five-in-a-row now. There are a lot of teams who want to win an All-Ireland. That has to be down the line.”
Bar Frank McGlynn, Bonner has everyone from his 2019 panel back on board again.
Kieran Gillespie will be out for a significant period following his latest injury set-back, while Eoghan Ban Gallagher will miss the bulk of the League as the Killybegs man recovers from an ankle injury.
Bonner insists his experienced men are all ‘mad to get back at it’.
The Na Rossa man said: “They’re really keen. That hunger is still there. There is a sense that we’re moving in the right direction. We have some tweaking to do and we have some Improvement to make, but let’s hope that we can do that in 2020.”
Bonner says Donegal must be competing in Division 1 ‘over a period of years’, while he has expressed a degree of frustration with the scheduling of the Sigerson Cup for the month of January.
He said: “January will be a very congested month with a lot of college games. It’s a balancing act, but we need to sit down and see where we’re going because we have a lot of lads in third level involved in Sigerson.
“It’s the ideal opportunity to use them, but that may not be the case now. It’s right in the middle of the McKenna Cup. We have to be careful of the demands on the players.
“It will be a juggling act, but we’re well aware that we have a huge match against Mayo on January 25th. That’s where all our energy is being geared to.”
Listen to the full interview below …
