BY CHRIS MCNULTY
c.mcnulty@donegalnews.com
MARTIN Boyle is pragmatic enough to know that a trip to St Eunan’s isn’t exactly the best possible game to kick-start the season for a Killybegs team that has lost its first five games.
But, this Sunday, he takes the Fishermen to Letterkenny for a clash with a side that comes off the back of delivering a 4-11 to 0-5 defeat to Four Masters at O’Donnell Park on Sunday.
The League table can have an unforgiving look about it sometimes. For the Killybegs manager, he looks deeper and can pinpoint where his side has its biggest deficiency.
Against Naomh Conaill, Leon Thompson hit a goal that won the day for the Glenties side; Patrick McBrearty shone when Kilcar won by five in Towney; last weekend, Colm McFadden’s 1-3 was the difference; against Ardara they couldn’t build on early promise; and they hit up-on 20 wides in a two-point loss to Four Masters.
With a scoring average of just 6.6 points a game, they have, by some distance, the lowest average in the Division.
“If only Manus was 25 again,” says ‘Slua’ – and you get a sense that he’s only half-joking.
“Look at the other teams – all of them have one marquee forward.”
From the side that won promotion out of Division 2 last season, Killybegs entered this campaign without Paul McGinley, Hughie McFadden and Brendan Faherty.
Add in Barry Cannon who works ‘two weeks on, two weeks off’ and Shane Molloy who is doing a charity cycle across the length of America and you get a sense of Boyle’s struggles.
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