Derry star Gareth McKinless ruled out for season confirms Paddy Tally

Both players picked up the injuries during Ballinderry's memorable run the All Ireland Intermediate Club Championship final, 2023 All Star McKinless playing with a heavy strapping in the final against Crossmolina in Croke Park, a match O'Donnell missed after playing a starring role in the Shamrocks' county and Ulster victories.

Both had been expected to be key members of Paddy Tally's new look Derry panel but following Sunday's dramatic defeat to Kerry in Celtic Park, the Oak Leaf boss revealed neither would be involved in the near future.

"Gareth has a bad injury, he won't be playing this season," explained Tally after Sunday's 1-24 to 5-15 reversal, "He's done his cruciate so he's out. And Niall O'Donnell has gone through a surgery there for a hamstring injury so now he's going to be out for a considerable amount of time as well."

The news capped a disappointing after for Derry who managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after a highly encouraging display against the Munster champions.

Shane McGuigan's goal had Derry three ahead as the stopclock reached its final two minutes following a thrilling game which never paused for breath. But just as Derry appeared to have done enough to claim a first win of the new season, two lapses in defence gifted goals to hand Kerry an unlikely victory.

"I thought we played really well but we conceded some terrible goals and that was the difference," admitted Tally, "The last two goals were just two mistakes. First one came off a mistake and for the second one we rushed the kick out and Kerry hit us again. To lose it within a minute is very disappointing."

Despite the result there were plenty for positives Tally with Anton Tohill enjoying his best display in a Derry shirt while, momentary late lapses aside, both Neil McNicholl and Mark Doherty enjoyed good first starts and Donncha Gilmore looked excellent.

"Midfield is massive in the new game," added the Derry boss, "Kerry were strong in that last section, they did come strong towards the end and they got on top of us, though I thought we still have won balls against the head when we needed to.

"Maybe sometimes we rushed the shot at times and could have been a bit more patient. We dropped ones wide when we had a couple of chances, had a couple of goal chances ourselves when we took points.

"I'm really disappointed because I thought we made a big improvement from last week's performance against Tyrone and I think we're much, much better today. But you can't give away five goals in a game and expect to win. It's just impossible so I think that's the biggest learning point for us.

"Generally I would be quite happy, our performance was way better than it was last week. We improved and looked like we were getting used to it. I think the more games we have, we’ll get better."