Jim McGuinness has refuted Niall Moyna's suggestion that he mistreated Martin McElhinney.

DCU boss Moyna made the allegation on Saturday night after the Donegal midfielder picked up an injury warming up for a challenge match with the county team, claiming that the player had been given time off by the college side and had therefore been abused by his intercounty management team.

Moyna's comments have shocked Donegal manager McGuinness, who says in the Examiner: "Seemingly Meath requested the game be brought forward to Saturday night and DCU agreed.

"When Martin told me he had a game on Saturday evening, I said to him we have our first league game in two weeks and I had all the players from the other college back to get a look at them. I said to him how can we expect to play you if we haven't seen you play.

"I've known him going back to his days as a student in Limavady. When I took over the Donegal job Martin was recovering from major groin surgery and his fitness levels dropped. Over the last 18 months I have got the best advice for Martin and have had a strength and conditioning coach working with him one-to-one once week.

"After investing so much time and expertise do people think I would abuse such a player? It's ridiculous. I'm annoyed someone would make that claim."

Talking in the Independent, McGuinness added: "It's pure nonsense. We weren't the ones who switched dates - that happened when the O'Byrne Cup semi-final was brought forward from Sunday to Saturday.

"The tail is wagging the dog in relation to the college-county scene at present, with the imbalance very much in favour of the colleges.

"The colleges have the players from October, while the county managers don't get them until January 1st. Counties are asked to play without the college players in January, which means the counties have very few days when they can get their full squad together for a national league that starts on the first week in February." Tweet

Most Read Stories