Jim McGuinness was making no excuses after Donegal’s bid for a three-in-a-row of Ulster SFC titles floundered at the first hurdle against Down.

The recently-crowned Allianz League Division 1 champions suffered a shock 1-21 to 3-21 defeat in front of their own fans in Letterkenny. It leaves them facing at least a four-week break to their All-Ireland SFC opener against one of the provincial finalists.

"A hard one to take," the Donegal manager admitted in an interview with RTÉ.

"Down were full value for their victory. They were written off in every single corner of the country over the last seven or 14 days, from what I have seen anyway, but we were also aware of the fact that they kicked 3-21 last year against Galway, their last championship game.

"We should have been ready for that. We weren’t ready for that. We weren’t our normal selves."

He added: "There were fellas coming back in that had missed a good chunk of the league," he said. "That definitely played a part. We looked leggy. We couldn’t get back sometimes off the Donegal kickout.

"There were indicators there that we were not ourselves, but Down came with a plan and a lot of passion because I would say a lot of things that were said and written. They are full value for their victory."

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