Jim McGuinness believes the unavailability of players through college commitments contributed to Donegal's shock McKenna Cup defeat to UUJ.

"The difficulty for us is we have a lot of players at other colleges," the Donegal manager said.

"We'd prefer to have them with us in the lead in to the Down game. Heading to Newry for a first league game without them having played a competitive game for us is a difficult situation."

He continued: "It was not what we wanted result-wise, but it's good to get the ball rolling. We had a few goal chances, but we have not got a lot of work done. But we had only three or four of the 15 out there today who came up to the level of fitness required.

"There is a lot of work to be done and we have a number of lads who are involved with colleges. We need to hit the ground running for the Down match. Our main aim remains Cavan in May." Tweet

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