BY CHRIS MCNULTY
GLENSWILLY is in the grip of Ulster final fever this week.
Gary McDaid’s side take on Ballinderry in Sunday’s Ulster senior club championship final at Omagh’s Healy Park (throw-in 3pm).
They are only the third Donegal club in the last 38 years to reach the final. Killybegs (1991) and Naomh Conaill (2010) were beaten in finals with St Joseph’s, Bundoran-Ballyshannon amalgamation, the sole Donegal success in the competition in 1975.
Now, Glenswilly stand on history’s threshold.
McDaid has injury concerns over Leon Kelly, who is still struggling with the hamstring injury first sustained playing for Donegal in the Ulster Under 21 final against Cavan, and Aidan McDevitt, who injured his back after falling from a roof in the week prior to their Ulster quarter-final against St Gall’s.
While both will be given every chance to prove their fitness, young Ryan Hunter is definitely out of the reckoning. The utility player damaged his cruciate knee ligament towards the end of an All-County League game against Glenfin last month and he goes under the knife in Galway this morning to repair the damage.
Otherwise, Glenswilly are at full strength.
McDaid has urged his men to seize the day on Sunday as the aim to bring the Seamus McFerran Cup back into the Hills of Glenswilly.
“We are being presented with these opportunities and it’s important that we grab them,” he said.
“Right now our club has a good bunch of players and it’s important that this group achieves as much as it can.
“I’ve already said that if we’d went down in the books as only winning one county title then I would have viewed it as an under performance as a group. They all have a second county medal now so why not take it a step further (in Ulster).”
Their opponents, Ballinderry, have won the last three Derry SFCs. They were given a boost on Friday night when defender Kevin McGuckin was cleared of a suspension after his red card from the semi-final win over Kilcoo was downgraded.
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