Derry hurling manager Johnny McGarvey on the victory over Donegal

Derry hurling manager Johnny McGarvey gives his verdict on the National League victory over Donegal in Letterkenny.

Transcript

00:00 Johnny, tough, tough win there in the... what you got there in the end?

00:06 Tough, tough, tough game. It took us a long time to get going today. I don't know what

00:10 it was, we warmed up fairly well. It was 20 minutes before we were anywhere near the level

00:16 that we would expect ourselves to be at. I think we got it back to draw at half time

00:21 and very fortunate, I'd say they were very disappointed at half time that it was back

00:24 level. But the second half, look, I think we set the tone the first couple of minutes

00:29 of the second half. We scored 8 or 9 points unanswered, held them scoreless for about

00:34 21, 22 minutes. I think that probably... big difference, you know, we got them 5 or 6 points

00:38 and took us home at the end.

00:40 What do you put the first half down to? Was it just a shooting because you were wrecking

00:43 up a lot of wides?

00:45 I think we had 16 misses, you know, between shots that dropped short and either blocked

00:50 down and wide. I think we had 24 shots, 26 shots in to end score, something like that.

00:56 That was a concern but we were getting outplayed. Shooting is one thing but we were shooting

01:01 off the back foot, we were shooting from the side lanes. It just wasn't good enough. It

01:05 wasn't where we'd expect to be, it's not the standards that we set for ourselves. But look,

01:09 we dug ourselves out of it, they played very, very well in the first half. They were probably

01:13 a wee bit more intense early on than what we were which is nearly a bigger disappointment

01:18 than the shooting. But as I say, we don't expect to be running out 10 point runners

01:23 every time we go out. We expect to have to dig results out. I'm very proud of the boys

01:26 today, I thought they were brilliant, I thought they were full forward line. Just gave us

01:29 outlets all day for the ball. Whenever we were struggling everywhere else, when the

01:32 ball went up, we got it.

01:34 You were saying about this could be one of the toughest games you were going to get away

01:37 to a Dani Gauld team. They put it up to you in the first half but it says a lot then that

01:42 you were able to rally and produce that second performance.

01:44 Aye, at the end of the day it's a 7.1 and we probably passed up two really good goal

01:48 chances at the end. So no, look, we have serious character and we've got serious leaders throughout

01:54 the team. Even the young lads, Eamon Duffin there at cornerback, in his second start out,

01:58 he was brilliant last week, he was brilliant again today. We struggled a wee bit in our

02:01 puck out, our goalkeeper gave us an outlet there in the second half and the lads up front,

02:05 Dara Mooney, Kyle Murray, outstanding. Really, really good. Delighted for them. We have leaders

02:11 there for situations like we were in there at half-time.

02:14 On track then, two wins from two, two tough games to start with.

02:18 Two tough ones, realistically three wins will probably guarantee you your place in the division

02:24 above next season with two home games to come. So look, we're over the moon to be where we

02:30 are. As I say, we expected to have to dig it out there today. We probably expected to

02:34 play a wee bit better in the first half but we expected to come here and have to fight

02:37 for it.

02:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]