McGuinness: We have plenty to work on

Speaking after his side's six-point victory over Cavan on Sunday, Donegal boss Jim McGuinness said while he was happy with the win, he believes the Ulster champions second-half performance was not quite good enough.

Donegal were six ahead at the break and eased up somewhat in the second half as Cavan stayed with them and ended up with a tally of 1-10 at the final whistle.

"There were things that we spoke about that weren't executed to the level that we would like them to be executed to," he said.

"Some of them mightn't seem that important on the outside, but when you're working on things, you're working on things and you want to try and nail them when you get the chance to execute it.

"There were a lot of things in the second half. We weren't ruthless. Twenty minutes out there was a feel of a challenge match about it for about 5 minutes and then Cavan came back into it.

"We were ponderous on the ball, we had opportunities to do things and we weren't clinical when we were doing them."

That said, McGuinness was more than aware of the fact that it's just the first week of the Championship and he was content to simply come away with the win.

"The other side of the coin is that it is May 20, it's the first day out in the Championship and it's early in the season and there's always a wee bit of nerves and jitters on the first day out.

"To get through and to have a game under out belt now and with a home tie, we're very happy about that and we're happy just to get out of Breffni with a win."

One of Cavan's brightest lights against Donegal was full-forward Eugene Keating, who hit five excellent points from play, and he was upbeat about his county's prospects after the game despite the defeat.

"It's important that we don't put the heads down and think that it's all over," said Keating.

"The important thing is to build, get a few games under our belt in the Qualifiers and do the best that we can. We want to build for next year. It's a work in progress. So hopefully we can get back on the training pitch and get a few games under our belt."

The Cuchullains clubman said Cavan's willingness to keep fighting even when defeat looked inevitable was the most pleasing element of their performance.

"I think we didn't give up. They got the penalty in the first half. We didn't give up after that," he said.

"We got a few frees and a few nice points. We kept working. I know we lost by six points but I think we still worked hard.

"That's a positive. You have to just look at that and build on it."