By Matthew Wilson
Joint Donegal Under 20 ladies manager Paul Gillespie expressed that a fruitful opening half from Galway left his side with a lot to do in Saturday’s All-Ireland Final.
Donegal travelled to Kilcoyne Memorial Park on Saturday for an All-Ireland showdown with Galway where the Connacht outfit ran out nine-point winners to seal the title.
The Tribeswomen attacked with purpose in Act One and they managed to land three key majors which left Gillespie and Dessie McNamara’s side with a lot of work to try and overturn the deficit.
Despite the defeat, Gillespie praised his team’s effort in the decider, battling hard in pursuit of scores until the final whistle.
“Galway got two quick goals which was probably something that we should have dealt with.
“It was two mistakes and then they got a third goal which we thought was probably a free out on our goalkeeper, we thought that our goalkeeper was charged into.
“We were three goals down within about ten minutes and it was an uphill battle after that.
“But fair play to the girls, they never gave up, they fought til the bitter end and that’s typical of these girls all year.”
Despite being nine points adrift at the break, Donegal will still have felt that they were in the game at the midway point.
Galway were shown a yellow card in the dying embers of the opening half and Donegal goalkeeper Ellie McGarvey produced a fine penalty save in added time which could’ve been a big turning point.
A major from Caitlin Fletcher reduced the arrears to six points as we entered the final quarter at the Sligo venue.
However, this was as close as Donegal managed to get and Gillespie stated that it just wasn’t to be for them in the attacking areas on the day.
“The penalty save was a big turning point, if that went in then the game was probably over.
“We spoke to the girls at half-time and we said that we were still in it. We came out in the second half and we had an extra player for a little while.
“We probably created six or seven chances and we didn’t take them. We maybe just took the wrong option where it was free in the middle and we tried to go out to the wings.
“It didn’t work but that’s the way it is. Overall, it has been a great year for us. The girls have been fantastic all year and we won an Ulster title. It’s disappointing today but we’ll move on and go forward.