Y MATTHEW WILSON

PH Bonar and his Ballybofey United side are adding the finishing touches ahead of the start of Division One season this Sunday.

The Ballybofey men had a solid season last time out, finishing fourth in the league and Bonar expressed that the side have a good pre-season under their belt, challenging themselves with some competitive friendlies.

“We had a poor pre-season last year so we were out early this year. We’ve been training since the start of July and we’ve played a lot of tough friendlies against the likes of Aileach and Keadue.

“ We purposely picked tough friendlies and we learned a lot from them.”

PH Bonar’s outfit have lost some experienced heads ahead of the new campaign in the form of Damien Glackin and Mark Griffin who’ve contributed greatly to the side at the top end of the pitch but they could return at some point according to the manager.

Bonar has been searching to replace the experience which he has lost and he’s managed to do that with the addition of three Sean MacCumhaills players.

“We lost a few players this year and I’ve brought in a few of the Gaelic lads to add experience in the likes of Marty O’Reilly, Chad McSorley and Ronan McMenamin.”

Following their promotion from Division Two in 2024, the Ballybofey outfit competed very well in their first year in Division One.

Ahead of the new campaign, the Ballybofey United boss discussed that retaining their place in the Division is the priority.

However, the players want to target a promotion push this season and Bonar insists that if they’re in a decent position later in the year then hopefully then can achieve that.

“We want to get ourselves safe in the Division, that’s always our number one target. We want to get enough points on the board that we don’t get ourselves relegated again because it puts aside two years of hard work.”

“We finished fourth last year and that’s probably an ideal position for us as I don’t think we’re ready for the Premier Division. With us losing the likes of Damien Glackin, it could take us another few years to survive up there.”

“If we’re in a good position later in the year then maybe we’ll have a go (at promotion). We had a chat during pre-season and the lads talked about promotion, the lads said we have to push for promotion this year.”