I’m not long back in the door from a rapid cross-country round-trip and so I’m only now catching up properly on the day’s sporting events. Included in this is the hurlers’ NHL Division 2B match away to Donegal, which ended in an emphatic defeat for Derek Walsh’s team.

I could see from the Twitter feed earlier on that this game in Letterkenny went awry from our point of view in the first half, with the concession of three goals before the break. What I didn’t know – and am only now reading about – was that the team was forced to travel without talismanic captain Keith Higgins and that his absence resulted in a reshuffling of playing personnel upfront, which obviously didn’t do our cause any good.

While having Keith there would clearly have made us stronger, you can’t really argue with a 4-18 to 0-13 result. Some days things just don’t go right and, for the hurlers, today was one of those days. Hard luck to them.

Reports on today’s game are available here – Mayo GAA, Donegal Live, Donegal Sports Hub.