"Growing up, football was everything to me but that’s kind of fading away a bit now."

Monaghan 1-16 Donegal 1-10: Monaghan are safe in Division One, for another season, while Donegal will have a final chance at survival on Sunday, when they host Mayo in a winner-takes-all contest in Ballybofey.

Few Allianz Football Leagues have provided more excitement. Fewer still have unearthed so much developing talent. John Fogarty picks the 10 standouts who’ve announced themselves this spring.

Your stand-out Neil Gallagher memory? His virtuoso performance against Cork in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final? Lifting the 2007 Division 1 cup as captain with a black eye due to a cut above it that required suturing, but no substitution? Bare-chested in Ballybofey having had his jersey ripped as he was sent off against Tyrone in 2015?

Tyrone 0-13 Donegal 0-11: “We became men today.” Seán Cavanagh had proven long before now that he is most certainly one of those but you knew what he meant. This Tyrone team hadn’t earned their spurs before yesterday. Now they have.

Donegal and Monaghan will meet next weekend after a Conor McManus free levelled this Ulster semi-final deep in additional time.

Dublin 1-20 Donegal 0-13: Different week, same old story.

Donegal 1-11 Down 0-11: Frank McGlynn’s goal, after only 68 seconds, fired Donegal to a useful opening-day win over Down, in the Dr McKenna Cup, at Ballybofey.

We’ll come to the football shortly but first yesterday’s All-Ireland hurling semi-final where Brian Gavin did well but should have awarded more frees.

Donegal 3-12 Galway 0-11

Caitríona McBride went to school with Eamon McGee, where she had to defend her pencil case from the future Donegal defender. They met recently to bring his story up to date.

Donegal 1-9 Derry 0-10: If it was hardly intriguing, it was tight. Mercifully. Because in truth, Saturday’s Ulster SFC semi final in Clones had little else going for it as a spectacle.

Armagh 0-8 Donegal 2-11: There was a time when it was Donegal who were the hopeless romantics and Armagh the dealers in dashed dreams, but those roles have long been reversed and never more so than yesterday afternoon in this lopsided Ulster quarter-final.

Donegal 1-13 Tyrone 1-10: It wasn’t fitting that Donegal won nor was it that Tyrone lost. But there was no denying the appropriateness of Michael Murphy scoring the last three points of the game after enduring a dog of an afternoon.

Even though he’s been around the block and on the sidelines for three of the last four years with Donegal, manager Rory Gallagher will be giddy with anticipation ahead of this game, writes Dara Ó Cinnéide.

Mayo 0-12 Donegal 1-09: This was one of those occasions when a draw was as good as a win for Donegal as the Ulster champions sneaked into next weekend’s league semi-final against table-toppers Cork.

If Cork had somebody to rope the wind, they might just have left Ballyshannon with a league point last Sunday.

Allianz FL Division 1 (R2): Dublin v Donegal: Those of us who had written Donegal out of the list of championship contenders before a ball was kicked in anger this year might have been premature.

Gaelic games is a participation sports at its broadest base.

All-Ireland SFC Final

Kerry 2-9 Donegal 0-12

Jim McGuinness has made two changes to the side that overcame Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final for tomorrow’s decider at Croke Park.

Rory Kavanagh had his doubts. He needed his arm twisting. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to; it was whether he was able to.

To justly appreciate the phenomenon that has been Jim McGuinness’s tenure with Donegal it would be an idea to ponder this question: in which of his four years in charge do you think he’s done the best coaching job?

Dublin 0-17 Donegal 3-14, Croke Park

Antrim 0-12 Donegal 3-16

One hopes Donegal’s Darach O’Connor didn’t have too much time to day-dream during his recently completed Leaving Cert. But, if he did, this was the type of day he surely contemplated.

The GAA have been hit by a second black card controversy in as many weeks after yesterday’s Ulster quarter-final in Derry.

Donegal moved back to the top of Division 2 this afternoon as they defeated Monaghan 2-11 to 0-10 in a repeat of last year's Ulster final in Letterkenny.

There are just four survivors from last year’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat by Dublin in the Kerry side to face IT Tralee in the McGrath Cup tomorrow.

Monaghan progressed to the Power NI Dr. McKenna Cup semi-finals as Section A winners after ending Fermanagh's early season unbeaten run.