Letterkenny travelled to Donegal Town for the return warm up fixture with their neighbours. It was the travelling side that started brightly from the kick off with some great ball carries by the abrasive Conor Dunleavy. Handling errors in the early part of the game denied the Letterkenny side any reward on the scoreboard for their strong forward charges. Yet again the Letterkenny scrum was dominant with the visiting front row of Rae Clarke, Shaun McGill and Chris Digimas giving their opposite numbers a torrid time, and from the scrum captain Terence Gallagher ran and linked well with Eoghan O’Riain. But too often the wrong attacking option was chosen or support was too slow making the resultant ruck slow at best and turned over on occasion.

Finally the Letterkenny side made the breakthrough. Off a scrum Gallagher broke and fed O’Riain. Dunleavy and Clarke amongst others continued to make ground before the play was switched to the blind-side where Cian Curran put Eoin Friel away to score near the corner. The conversion was added by Ryan Mortimer who also added a penalty just before half time.

The second half started well for the Letterkenny side setting up camp inside the Donegal 22 only for them to let the home side off the hook with a series of unforced handling errors and lacklustre defence out wide. The strength of the Letterkenny set piece was helping to make amends where debutant Olan Noonan was stealing everything at the front of the line out. Midway through the first half Donegal Town had a sustained period of pressure and threw everything at the Lettterkenny line. With the scrums now uncontested Donegal Town had a platform of possession and after several carries close to the ruck the Donegal Town back line went wide inside the 22 and found the visiting defence lacking numbers and crossed for a relatively easy try which went unconverted.

With the light fading the visitors wanted to finish on high and from the restart were able to contain Donegal Town inside their own half but were not ruthless enough at the breakdown to enjoy quick clean ball to sustain their attacks. From a breakdown Gallagher went right and broke several tackles before offloading to the industrious Gary Canning who crossed the line for the final score of the evening.
The first league game of the season is away to BHSFP on Saturday 12th September. Training continues at Dave Gallaher Park on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7.00-8.30 pm.