The Donegal minor hurlers won a hotly contested Ulster Minor Hurling Shield final against a plucky Tyrone side at Celtic Park, Derry City, Friday 22nd April.
Entering the game with quiet confidence, the lads from the North West registered a Kevin Kealy point after only ten seconds. Despite this, Tyrone settled the quicker and soon had a goal on the board after seven minutes leaving it 1-2 to 0-1. Donegal through Kieran Brady immediately responded with a goal of their own and in a dominant period of 15 minutes opened up a 4 point lead with a hat trick of points from Macaulay Carr, aided with points from Cian Randles, Kieran Brady and Jamie De Ward. Tyrone clawed back this lead through another goal and points but Donegal retained their four point lead once again through a goal from Cian Randles and point from Caolan McDermott.
Donegal stretched out their lead at the restart to six points through Kevin Kealy, while Captain Cathal Doherty opened his own scoring account. Tyrone showed great grit and determination and brought the game back to one point but this was to be the closest they got. Donegal withstood the best efforts of Tyrone thanks to some great stops by goal keeper Ciaran Bradley. Fiachra McLaughlin, Chris Gallagher and Brian McHenry were sterling in defence also. Some inspirational long range scores from Kevin Kealy, Macaulay Carr and Stephen Anderson drove Donegal on to a 5 point victory in the end, 3-14 to 3-9.
Having competed in the Ulster Championship for the last three years Donegal found themselves back in the Shield competition this year. They have now earned the right to play Armagh in a preliminary round of the Ulster Championship in June.
