Rory Gallagher and his Donegal layers have 'a lot of work to do' in advance of their Ulster SFC final against Monaghan on July 19th.

The holders scraped over Derry on a scoreline of 1-9 to 0-10 in Clones on Saturday evening and, shortly after the final whistle, Gallagher told The Irish Independent: "It's not a bad way to go in with a lot of work to do.

"We played well in the spell after half-time and kicked a couple of massive scores from Colm (McFadden) and Martin (McElhinney) and Michael (Murphy) and then the goal was a great goal.

"So there was a lot of good football played, but we should have pushed on.

"When you go 4-1 up, you expect to push up and we were probably even more disappointed in the second half when we went five points up and sat back again. It's too early to sit back.

"You need to be seven or eight points up before you could start thinking about killing the game, but you have to give Derry credit too.

"They had been in a league final last year and were focused on the championship all year, and we knew they were operating at a higher level than Armagh, so it was always going to be a difficult challenge."

Brian McIver, meanwhile, was left to ponder what might have been at the final whistle.

"That was one that got away from us, we left this game behind us. We fully believed we were going to win this game and had prepared really well and we created the chances.

"Donegal are a great side but today I thought we more than matched them."

 

 

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