Donegal will make their return to the Nicky Rackard Cup competition after a four-year absence tomorrow when they play host to Roscommon in Letterkenny.

The Tir Chonaill men won the fourth-tier Lory Meagher Cup last year and are hoping to build on that under their Galway-born manager Ray Durack. Donegal had a lucky escape in the recent Allianz Hurling League when they only retained their Division 3A status by virtue of a playoff victory over Sligo, but Durack believes they are in a stronger position now.

"We were missing a lot of players in the league and we found the going tough, but when we had to we pulled out all the stops against Sligo in the playoff and survived, and I feel we are in much better shape now," he told the Donegal Democrat.

"We have worked hard in the last couple of weeks and had former Tipperary All-Ireland winning trainer Eamonn O'Shea from two years ago up for a session. He is part of the new mentoring system run by Croke Park and he has been assigned to us and will visit the county six times this year so we hope to see him again in a few weeks' time if we can get a run going in the championship."

On tomorrow's opponents, Durack said: "They had a poor league campaign alright, but they have been playing at a higher level of hurling than us in recent years. They are still formidable opposition." Tweet

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