Declan Bonner, the Donegal manager, commended the resolve shown by his young side as they came from four points down late on to overcame Meath in a frost-bitten Ballybofey on Saturday night.

Dessie Farrell sold a neat dummy as a Dublin footballer and has carried an element of that same chicanery with him into management.

Donegal’s Marty O’Reilly insists that qualifying to face Dublin in an Allianz Football League final wouldn’t be viewed as a poisoned chalice.