Donegal selector Maxi Curran insists it’s only a matter of time before goalkeeper Paul Durcan returns to the inter-county fold.

Durcan has been working in Qatar since late last year, but even though he flew home to play a part in Ballyboden’s All-Ireland Club Championship win, he has not been involved with Donegal this season. 
It was reported this week in some quarters that he would definitely play no part in the Ulster side’s Championship campaign this year. But at the launch of the Ulster Football Championship in Newry yesterday, Curran revealed that Durcan could soon return to the fold.

“There has been lots of stories flying around about Paul,” said Curran. “There has been no hard or fast decision made on it. The situation has not changed. When Paul went away first we decided that we would work away without him, what he was able to do with Ballyboden would not really be able to work at inter-county level. It was a brilliant achievement but it is just no workable at this level.

“Anything we got out of Paul we always said would be a bonus. Paul will be back, there is no doubt about that. It is a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’’. It could be soon, it could be further down the line, we are just not sure. We are just planning without him at the minute.”

Donegal have plenty of options in the goalkeeping position. Marc Anthony  McGinley and Peter Boyle both got game-time during the McKenna Cup and Allianz League campaigns, while Michael Boyle will also be in the frame for the Championship after recovering from a cruciate ligament injury. But Curran admits that Donegal are still missing Durcan.

“He is a fantastic goalkeeper, there is no doubt about it,” he said. “Any player of Paul Durcan’s class would be missed. There are very few better in the country. Stephen Cluxton maybe who is probably the best goalkeeper that has ever played the game. Paul is up there with him and has played a massive part in our success in the last couple of years. It is a challenge for us to overcome. We have a couple of goalkeepers, Michael Boyle is coming back from a cruciate injury.

“He is waiting a long time for his chance, he has been very unfortunate with the timing  his injuries and he missed a chance to play in the National league, Marc Anthony McGinley has come in and acquitted himself very well, Peter O’Boyle played with our under-21S a few years ago and his kick-outs are very good. Look, we have piles of options. Paul is a loss but we have known it for a while and like any one who loses a big player you just have to take it on the chin and move on.”

Donegal were well-beaten by Dublin in the Allianz League semi-final, but Curran believes some of the criticism that was directed at the team after the match was over the top.

“People tend to get hysterical I think after games and get carried away with how games end up. The reality is that two weeks previous after 67 minutes we were two points down and then all of a sudden two weeks later we are finished. By that stage, we had lost Michael Murphy in that regulation match as well, and we felt that we played well in that game and we felt we had a real chance of winning it before Michael left the field.

“It is all relevant to the time of the year that you are playing at. The game has changed over the last few years. This notion of teams running out of legs, teams now are far more accustomed with dealing with counter attacks, setting up defensively and teams are better equipped to teams running at them than they were in the early days of Donegal’s emergence.”