By Frank Craig

The Donegal Youth League must defeat their Mayo counterparts in Ballyare tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) if they are to progress to the knock-out stages of the competition (kick-off, 2pm).

In the three-team section, Eamon McConigley’s lads have already suffered a 3-0 loss to Inishowen. That clash – the side’s only outing to date – came way back in November.

The disjointed nature of the fixtures list isn’t ideal for the Donegal manager and it’s been hard to find any form of traction in the competition.

McConigley told the Donegal News. “It has (been a long lay-off). It’s definitely a must-win now against Mayo at the weekend. It’s a long time since our last game and that’s the major problem with this competition.

“I suppose the underage season going to summer football, and when you have a transitional period now as well; it’s nearly impossible to stay on top of who’s who and personnel.”

The manager says he didn’t ask too much of his players over the Christmas period or January. And that his selection process for the weekend will centre largely on last Tuesday night’s friendly with Finn Harps Under 17s.

“We didn’t do too much,” he said on matters since the Inishowen game.

“We had a game on Tuesday in Ballyare against Finn Harps Under 17s. That’s given me more of an indication of what we will have available on Saturday.

“I know Harps are looking to get their side of things organised too. They’ve taken Gavin McGee on board (from us) but I think that’s the only one. For us, it’s about looking at who is going to be available and who isn’t.

“We still should have a fairly strong side for Saturday.”

With little or no football being played in over 10 weeks, it has been almost impossible to find any worthwhile information on their guests from the west.

That works both ways however and McConigley can at least console himself with the fact that Mayo are travelling with no knowledge of Donegal other than a scant match report or two of their loss to Inishowen online.

“We haven’t much to go on,” he admitted.”

“But they’ll be in the exact same position as ourselves in that regard. They’ve had that long gap as well. Inishowen beat them comfortably. All we can do is base our information on that.

“I talked to the Inishowen manager after the game and he was telling me that they (Mayo) weren’t a bad side. Apparently, they had a few players missing too when they played Inishowen.

“It really is all about how we perform on the day now. At least we’re at home and they have to travel. Sometimes when sides are on the road they don’t always have their best side with them. We’re at home in Ballyare and we’d hope that counts for something.

“We’ve no injury worries at the moment. We were to have a training session on Friday night last but unfortunately the weather accounted for those plans. The thing about the competition is that there really was no point taking lads back in in December when they weren’t out again until February.

“You have to try to get the momentum going again in the weeks leading up to game. That’s what we’ve tried to do.”