Niamh Boyle ready to lead from the front and help end Donegal's season on a high

Play-off games can be colourful spectacles. Players will end up black and blue in the hope of keeping their side’s senior status alive. 

And that is exactly what Niamh Boyle and her Donegal side tend on doing when they face Kildare this Saturday in Breffni Park, with the winner guaranteed senior football for the 2025 season. 

The St Naul’s woman has been through the highs and lows of inter-county since she first burst onto the scene with the Donegal senior team in 2019.  

She’s experienced Ulster wins and All-Ireland semi-final defeats. And while Saturday’s play-off adds even more pressure to an already steady career, she’s determined to face it head-on. 

At the age of just 24, but with six seasons of inter-county experience to her name, Boyle knows better than most that, alongside a handle of other Donegal stars, it’s their job to step up to the mark and lead their side to victory against a Kildare team that has already beaten Donegal in the Division 2 league campaign earlier this season. 

“I think this year in particular, the like of me, Tara Hegarty, Roisin Rogers, Suzanne White, and a few others who have been on the panel for a while now, yeah, we had to play a greater part in leading the team, that’s natural the longer you’re on a squad,” Boyle said at the St Naul’s GAA ground where she was in the middle of coaching children during Wednesday’s Cúl Camps.  

“I think we were very fortunate as young players when we came into the team, we had role models like Geraldine McLaughlin, Katy Herron, and Karen Guthrie, and just to be able to learn from them and train with them, it was a real honour and a real experience.  

“So, what we try to do now as senior players is try to keep the same standards that they brought to the team. We take those standards into training and into matches and try and lead by example.” 

It’s been a year of mixed emotions for Donegal this season, they have produced some stellar performances against some of the top teams in the country, but the results just haven’t fallen their way. 

A one-point defeat to Armagh after extra-time in the Ulster final was followed by a drawn group stage game against Kerry before eventually being dumped out of the championship by Waterford. 

There’s been learnings along the way, but now, with a crunch play-off game against a stellar Kildare side that recently won the Division 2 league last spring, Donegal know it’s now or never if they wish to keep their senior status alive and end their year of transition on a high. 

“We were delighted with our performances against the likes of Armagh and Kerry, and we were hoping to back that up against Waterford but it didn’t go our way on the day and we were very disappointed with our performance,” said Boyle. 

“We knew that day against Waterford, we were nowhere near our best, so this weekend we hope to rectify that against Kildare. It’s going to be all about our gameplan and how we can produce our best performance, even though Kildare will pose their own challenges.  

“We played them in the league in January and they beat us in Letterkenny, so we’re just going to go out and put up a fight. Our aim now is to do everything to retain our senior status, playing at the top level is a big thing for us, so we’ll go out and give it our all.” 

Against Waterford two weeks ago, it was a day that Donegal just never got out of second gear. Boyle knows that that won’t be good enough against Kildare this Saturday as her side aims to put up a ‘big fight’ in the hope of overcoming the Lilywhites. 

“I think maybe the long journey down to Waterford played a part, but on the game itself, they got a goal early on and we just could never get up to speed. It was one of those days where we never got going. In the second half that day, we had scoring opportunities, we did have chances, but they just never came off and we couldn’t close the gap,” the Donegal midfielder said. 

“Since the Waterford match, we’ve worked hard at training, but we’ve done the same stuff that we’ve been doing all year in terms of working to the same system that suits us. We’ve been working on our forward play in terms of trying to be more clinical up front which is something we lacked against Waterford, so there has been a focus there. 

“The thing is, we know that we are capable of playing these bigger teams and matching them, it’s just about putting in a good performance on the day. That’s our attitude for Saturday, it’s about going in ready for a big fight and hoping that will be enough to get us over the line.” 

There is a sense that any increased sense of responsibility will come naturally to Boyle this weekend as the 24-year-old Sligo graduate aims to put in her performance of the year in the hope of salvaging her county’s season in Cavan.