Derry minor boss Kieran Glackin praises players' character after Donegal win
Derry minor manager Kieran Glackin was full of praise for team's character after they dug out a crucial league victory against Donegal - one which had big ramifications for the forthcoming Ulster Championship draw.
The Oak Leafers looked set for defeat when they trailed by four points with four minutes left at a gale lashed Owenbeg on Saturday, a defeat which would have ceded second spot in the group to Karl Lacey's visitors and left Derry facing the prospect of an away championship quarter-final as one of the second seeded teams.
Polo McPeake's super two-pointer and Joey Mullan second goal of the game, both in injury time, avoided that scenario on day when only the result mattered with Glackin delighted by the fighting spirit shown by his players.
"When we set out at the start of the year it is step at a time and we are only one more step forward, but a home draw and a seed 1 for the championship was our main aim for the league.
"We won our first two games, beating Antrim here and going to Crossmaglen to beat Armagh," he explained, "Had we won last week we would have got (top seeding) even before that this game but obviously we were beat by Monaghan, a game we could have won. We were missing quite a few players with St Pat's Maghera hurlers unavailable to us and we came out the wrong side of that one.
"That meant there was a bit at stake today and you could see from both teams that they wanted that number one seeding. It wasn't for the will of the Minor League, it was probably more for the No. 1 seeding in the championship which, only time will tell if it proves important or not but you'd rather have it than not have it."
The Derry manager admitted he was starting to fear the worse when Donegal's grabbed three crucial second half scores against the wind to keep the home side at arm's length for the majority of the second half.
"We left it very late," he admitted after the 2-09 to 0-12 victory, " The conditions were really poor, very tricky for young fellas or anybody to play football in but I thought we did really well in the first half. We maybe gave them a few scores but going in six down at half-time with that strong breeze to come, we thought we were in a good enough position.
"We got off to a good enough start in the second half with a couple of good scores but then we really couldn't get any momentum. Donegal kicked a couple of very good scores against the gale force breeze which I felt really rocked our momentum and for a long time we couldn't get possession of the ball.
"I think with four (minutes) to go we were maybe still five down so it weas good character. Big Pol kicked an exceptional two-pointer on the 60th minute and we knew at that stage the draw would have done it for us to get the No. 1 seeding; so at that stage it was really about keeping possession.
"But the lads went at it again and we got a fortunate enough goal, the boys pressed very hard on the Donegal keeper and we got the turnover, got the goal and got the win thankfully."