Donegal will face Wicklow in the final of the 2023 Nicky Rackard Cup at Croke Park next month after they beat Louth by 2-19 to 4-7 at a sunny O’Donnell Park in Letterkenny.
For Mickey McCann’s side this was a fourth win on the trot as they proved to too strong for a Louth side who had taken just a point from their three previous games in the competition. But this was a far from fluent performance.
Donegal led by 1-11 to 15 at half-time and were very much on top, but they lost the influential Declan Coulter who had to go off with a hand injury. Ronan McDermott got the Donegal goal.
Louth briefly showed signs of getting back into things after the break with Tom Matthews got his second goal to reduce the Donegal lead to 1-13 to 2-6.
But Donegal picked things up again and a fine goal from Ruairi Campbell in the 55th minute made it 2-15 t0 2-6 and firmly on course for victory. Louth mounted a late rally and scored two goals with question marks over the Donegal defence but the result was never really in doubt and the held on to win by a six point margin.
Chris Ashmore has the full time report..
