Donegal 'not getting carried away' before Down opener

A first provincial three in a row may be on offer for Donegal this year, but midfielder Hugh McFadden is not looking past the challenge of Down in Letterkenny this Sunday [15:00 BST].

Jim McGuinness' side came through epic Ulster finals against Armagh in both 2024 and 2025, and while many predict the pair will meet at the semi-final stage this year, McFadden insists he and his team-mates are not taking their eye off the ball.

The 32-year-old from Killybegs has been around the block enough times to know there are no givens in the Ulster Senior Football Championship and experienced as much in 2023 when Down won a quarter-final meeting between the pair.

Undoubtedly, both are better sides now than three years ago, and with that in mind, there is no looking past the challenge posed by Conor Laverty's side this week.

"There's a lot to fight for over the next few weeks," McFadden told BBC Sport NI.

"It would be great to have a home game to start the All-Ireland series [as reward for reaching the Ulster final], but our focus is on Down.

"We know the ins and outs of the Ulster Championship, and if you look too far ahead you'll get stung.

"Down comprehensively beat us in the first round of the Ulster Championship in 2023, so it will be a very competitive battle."

Donegal enter this year's championship with silverware already secured in the form of the Division One league title.

That emphatic victory over Kerry in the final at the end of March has fulled expectations that 2026 may be the year that Donegal can win a first All-Ireland title since 2014.

However, despite the manner of the victory over the Kingdom last month, McFadden says "we're not going to read into it too extensively" and referenced Dublin in 2023 and Armagh the following year as evidence that it takes more than league success to translate into championship glory.

"We know what we want to do this year, what we have to work on and improve on," he said.

"There's some amount of very good teams around the country, teams who have won an All-Ireland over the past few years from Division Two, so we're not getting carried away.

"There's a lot of top teams on our side of the draw, but there's a lot of top teams throughout Ulster and no game is handy won.

"Over the past few years we've had titanic battles with everybody, so it will take every inch of our being to get over the line."