BY RYAN FERRY

NAOMH Conaill manager Martin Regan says he needs players to step up and be leaders to help fill the void left by Ciaran Thompson’s injury.

Regan’s men were pushed all the way by Downings on Sunday but were delighted to win by three points.

That’s their second victory from three games and while they haven’t been quite at their best yet, they will be a formidable side in the knock-out stages.

Thompson has been a clutch player for Naomh Conaill down through the years but he got injured during the first half of the All-Ireland Final while playing for Donegal.

The 30-year-old has a partial tear of his ACL and while there was some hope initially that he wouldn’t need surgery, a full reconstruction was required.

That’s a huge blow for his club and for his county, and with an eight/nine month recovery time at best, it will be well into Donegal’s season next year before he will be in a position to play if everything goes to plan.

Naomh Conaill will miss him in the coming weeks but Regan has trust in his panel.

“Ciaran had his operation so he’s gone for the year now.

“He had the operation in Santry last week.

“I suppose even if he didn’t need the operation, it was going to be four or five weeks of rehab so we had made peace a couple of weeks ago that we wouldn’t have him.

“He’s a huge loss, but we have players back that we didn’t have last year like Eoghan (McGettigan) and Kieran (Gallagher) and we were missing Jeaic (Mac Ceallabhuí) last season. Shea Malone and Max Campbell have been added in as well.

“Ciaran is a big-game player and he always delivered in finals for us. But that mantle will pass onto someone else now and we will need others to be leaders for us in the next couple of weeks if we are to achieve anything.”

Sunday’s win leaves Naomh Conaill in a good position heading into the final round, but with a score difference of +1, Regan feels it’s unlikely that they will make the top four even with a win over St Michael’s.

He also was surprised that the final round of matches are not all being played at the same time.

St Naul’s v Dungloe, Glenfin v Ardara, Aodh Ruadh v Killybegs, and Termon v St Eunan’s will all be played on Saturday at 6.30pm with Naomh Conaill v St Michael’s, Sean MacCumhaills v Gaoth Dobhair, Dungloe v Four Masters, and Kilcar v Glenswilly all at 4pm on Sunday.

“It’s very interesting.

“We lost our first game but that has us through now to the top 12.

“The likes of Glenswilly and Termon who were going so well early doors are now looking over their shoulders.

“I think the last round of games are going to be very interesting.

“I don’t know if it is confirmed that there are going to be some games on Saturday and some on Sunday.

“It’s probably not ideal for some clubs being out on Saturday. It’s a bit of an advantage to be out on Sunday.

“It is what it is but it’s surprising because certain clubs will know what they need to do on Sunday if they need things.

“They probably tried to keep the teams in the bottom half playing Saturday and the rest on Sunday but I would be disappointed now if we were out on Saturday.

“I think the fairest thing would be the eight games at the same time if it was possible but maybe it wasn’t possible.

“It’s easy for us to say looking in but I thought the eight games should have been at the same time.”