Donegal boss Jim McGuinness has been speaking of the importance of next Sunday’s Allianz National Football League clash with Mayo in Castlebar.
Following their defeat to Cork on Saturday, the All Ireland champions need the points to be safe from relegation, as defeat would leave them needing a win against Dublin in their final match, in order to secure their top flight status.
“Next week is the big game for us now,” McGuinness said.
“That’s the great thing about football – we’re disappointed tonight, but we’ll be back in training on Tuesday night for Mayo.
“We know where we’re at and we’re still not at the level that we need to be at. Cork had big spells in the second half with a lot of possession, but for us it is about getting up the levels. We looked at Michael (Murphy) in the middle of the park and tried a few other different things in the game. We tried to win the points at the same time. We’re trying to balance those things all the time. Hopefully we can go to Mayo and pick up two points.
“I think we’re probably there or thereabouts where we were last year. We’re maybe a wee bit ahead in terms of our overall conditioning. We’re reasonably happy, but we’re disappointed with our second-half performance tonight. If we had upped our levels 10 or 15% and one of the goal chances had gone in, we’d have got something out of the game.”
