McGuinness pleased by fightback if not performance

Donegal manager Jim McGuinness felt his team made more mistakes in their defeat to Cork than they had in their entire championship run to date.

The Ulster champions were porous in defence as Cork caused something of an upset by plundering three goals on their way to a 3-09 to 0-16 point victory at Pairc Ui Rinn.

Indeed the Rebels could have raised more green flags, with the real damage done after the break when they hit two goals in three minutes.

While Donegal, who led by two points at the interval, fought back in the final quarter to level matters, it was the Rebels who finished stronger to make it two wins from two in Group 3.

McGuinness admitted that his team weren’t at their usual high standards on Leeside as they fell to their first defeat across league and championship this year.

“We didn’t do enough to win the game,” he told RTÉ Sport. “We made a good comeback in the second half, but the reality is you can’t go away from home, against a team like Cork, and give away three goals. We got punished heavily, particularly in the transition moments.

“We never really had any control over the game. There was a period when we really turned the screw, in the third quarter, and we will draw heart from that.”

Matty Taylor, Sean Powter and Rory Maguire were the Cork goal scorers, as their high press and rapid transition had Donegal in all kinds of bother.

“All of them goals came in the transition, and that was flagged in the video analysis, I can assure you,” McGuinness said.

“They are very good in the transition, very good on their own kickout. They probably go 50/50 on their own kickout more than any other team in the country. They are very good at it and on the breaking ball.

“There were probably more unforced errors today than we have had over the course of all the championship games up to this point.”

Cork manager John Cleary now leads his team into the Round 3 clash looking to maintain a 100% record, said it was a pleasing performance in a lively atmosphere at the Ballintemple venue.

“We’re delighted with the win, playing in front of our won supporters against a top, top team in Donegal,” he said.

“We left two more behind us in the first half. The way Donegal played, we felt we would get chances to break, and we have great pace around the middle and strong runners.

It’s something we have been working on. In the league and probably last year, we missed an awful lot of goal chances, and it cost us in the big matches.”