Derry hurling manager Johnny McGarvey gives his verdict on the National League victory over Donegal in Letterkenny.
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00:00 Johnny, tough, tough win there in the... what you got there in the end?
00:06 Tough, tough, tough game. It took us a long time to get going today. I don't know what
00:10 it was, we warmed up fairly well. It was 20 minutes before we were anywhere near the level
00:16 that we would expect ourselves to be at. I think we got it back to draw at half time
00:21 and very fortunate, I'd say they were very disappointed at half time that it was back
00:24 level. But the second half, look, I think we set the tone the first couple of minutes
00:29 of the second half. We scored 8 or 9 points unanswered, held them scoreless for about
00:34 21, 22 minutes. I think that probably... big difference, you know, we got them 5 or 6 points
00:38 and took us home at the end.
00:40 What do you put the first half down to? Was it just a shooting because you were wrecking
00:43 up a lot of wides?
00:45 I think we had 16 misses, you know, between shots that dropped short and either blocked
00:50 down and wide. I think we had 24 shots, 26 shots in to end score, something like that.
00:56 That was a concern but we were getting outplayed. Shooting is one thing but we were shooting
01:01 off the back foot, we were shooting from the side lanes. It just wasn't good enough. It
01:05 wasn't where we'd expect to be, it's not the standards that we set for ourselves. But look,
01:09 we dug ourselves out of it, they played very, very well in the first half. They were probably
01:13 a wee bit more intense early on than what we were which is nearly a bigger disappointment
01:18 than the shooting. But as I say, we don't expect to be running out 10 point runners
01:23 every time we go out. We expect to have to dig results out. I'm very proud of the boys
01:26 today, I thought they were brilliant, I thought they were full forward line. Just gave us
01:29 outlets all day for the ball. Whenever we were struggling everywhere else, when the
01:32 ball went up, we got it.
01:34 You were saying about this could be one of the toughest games you were going to get away
01:37 to a Dani Gauld team. They put it up to you in the first half but it says a lot then that
01:42 you were able to rally and produce that second performance.
01:44 Aye, at the end of the day it's a 7.1 and we probably passed up two really good goal
01:48 chances at the end. So no, look, we have serious character and we've got serious leaders throughout
01:54 the team. Even the young lads, Eamon Duffin there at cornerback, in his second start out,
01:58 he was brilliant last week, he was brilliant again today. We struggled a wee bit in our
02:01 puck out, our goalkeeper gave us an outlet there in the second half and the lads up front,
02:05 Dara Mooney, Kyle Murray, outstanding. Really, really good. Delighted for them. We have leaders
02:11 there for situations like we were in there at half-time.
02:14 On track then, two wins from two, two tough games to start with.
02:18 Two tough ones, realistically three wins will probably guarantee you your place in the division
02:24 above next season with two home games to come. So look, we're over the moon to be where we
02:30 are. As I say, we expected to have to dig it out there today. We probably expected to
02:34 play a wee bit better in the first half but we expected to come here and have to fight
02:37 for it.
02:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]