Donegal star Martin McElhinney.
By John Harrington
Martin McElhinney has disputed the notion that Donegal will be in a period of transition next year.
They’ve already lost long-serving players like Rory Kavanagh and Eamon McGee to retirement, and it remains to be seen if the likes of Neil Gallager and Christy Toye will commit for another year.
McElhinney is hopeful that duo sticks around, and believes the key for Donegal is that other players step forward to ease the burden of leadership on the team veterans.
"A lot of people saying there's a transition there at the moment,” he said. “I think there are a couple of retirements but I'm not sure are there many more.
“Everyone else will probably be back. It's about time that a lot of boys stepped up, a lot of boys around the 26, 27 mark. We're kind of relying on Rory Kavanagh, big Neil - he'll probably be back - now there are other boys coming through to take on the mantle.
“In fairness to Ryan McHugh and Odhran MacNiallais they have this last while. If we can breed a couple of new players in the league to bring on to championship that's what we'll be looking for.”
McElhinney is a St. Michael’s clubmate of Christy Toye, and is hopeful the 33-year-old will commit to inter-county football for another year.
"He's around a long time,” says McElhinney. “He's a club mate of mine and I'd be talking to him regularly. Christy's a funny character, he never says too much about football or talks about retirement.
“He hasn't spoken any word of it so as far as we know next year you wouldn't know, Christy could say nothing and not turn up. We'll be glad to get him back.
“He's a serious asset, he's very good in the dressing room. He's one of those boys, if he went out tomorrow he’d be the fittest man of the pitch. Fitness isn't his problem. It's whether he goes back himself. That's the one.”
Donegal briefly looked like they might cause a shock in this year’s All-Ireland Quarter-Final against Dublin when Diarmuid Connolly and Eoghan O’Gara were red-carded in the second-half.
Martin McElhinney
But they simply didn’t have enough of a cutting edge in attack to make the most of the opportunity presented to them by their numerical advantage.
"We're very disappointed after the Dublin game,” says McElhinney. “We felt that we put it up to them in the first half and in the second half we felt when we got the goal we could have kicked on.
“I think Dublin at the right times got the right scores and were very composed on the ball, even though they went two men down, still very composed on the ball, found it hard to get it off them.
“I know people said we should have gone for it but it wasn't that we weren't trying to go for it, it was just that Dublin knew how to play keep ball and it was hard for us to get it off them.”
Donegal have been one of the most consistent teams in the Championship for the past six seasons now, and McElhinney is confident they will be genuine All-Ireland contenders in 2017 again.
"Definitely you wouldn't be going out to play and train hard if you didn't think you could challenge for All-Irelands,” he says.
“No point in turning up if you don't think like that. We got a couple of setbacks the last couple of years so we'll be looking to concentrate on blooding a few new players in the league, staying safe and getting over Antrim in the first round. That's all we'll be focusing on.”
