Donaghy hoping to skipper Tyrone Minors to Ulster glory

TYRONE have won the Ulster Minor Championship a record 25 times stretching all the way back to their inaugural success in 1931, and this Sunday, Padraig Donaghy will aim to follow in the footsteps of many distinguished footballers who have collected the Fr. Murray Cup on behalf of the O’Neill County.

The Carrickmore lad says that one of the core reasons behind their surge to Sunday’s decider against the Breffni County at Brewster Park is the abiding sense of camaraderie and belonging within the camp.

They’re good mates off the field, but they know when it’s time to knuckle down and they’ve brought all their hard work on the training ground to the field of play since the opening ball was kicked back in the first round of the Ulster Minor League.

They haven’t lost a single game, including two prior victories over the Breffni County, but the softly spoken Donaghy, whose brother James won an All-Ireland U20 title with Tyrone in 2022, certainly isn’t resting on his laurels.

“We have a good record this year but that won’t mean anything if you don’t win the next game, we’re always looking at the next game in front of us.

“We saw the test that Cavan gave us just a couple of weeks ago, so we know what to expect from them, and they know what to expect from us, so it should be a good game.”

Donaghy will have the honour of leading the team out at Brewster Park this Sunday, and he says there’s been a great spirit in the camp all season.

“It’s been really good, there’s a great sense of morale in the team. Everyone gets on well with each other – training can be tough but there’s great enjoyment as well. There’s a bit of messing about but we take the training very seriously. There’s a great team spirit and hopefully we can keep it all going.”

Reflecting on their semi-final win against Monaghan last weekend on a scoreline of 2-20 to 3-12, Donaghy acknowledges that it wasn’t a note-perfect performance but adds that Monaghan are a fine outfit and it was never likely to be a straightforward day at the office.

Padraig said: “We got out of the blocks quickly, we were 1-7 to 0-1 point up and then they had their purple patch before half-time.

“We started off the second-half strongly but they came back into it well and we found ourselves two points down with 15 minutes to go. We did well to come through it, though our game management could’ve been better late on, we gave away a couple of balls.

” Still, Monaghan are a very dogged team, we saw what they did against Armagh in the quarters. We played well in patches, in other patches we switched off a bit, but we’re in the final now and we’re looking forward to it.”