Donegal 2-22 Down 1-12

It’s said if you’re once bitten you’ll be twice shy, so Declan Bonner has reason to be tentative as Donegal head to nearby Celtic Park in Derry well-tipped to win Sunday’s Ulster SFC quarter-final.

Although some of the fizz has been taken out of the provincial championships since the introduction of the qualifiers back in 2001, there’s a semblance of a climactic feel to Donegal’s preliminary round opener against Cavan in Ballybofey tomorrow.

When Mayo are in town, there’s usually drama and that was certainly the case in Ballybofey yesterday when a point from Kevin McLoughlin in the fourth minute of injury time preserved the top-flight status of Stephen Rochford’s side at Donegal’s expense.

Tyrone 1-12 Donegal 1-16: Donegal and Tyrone threw the play-books out the window and served up an entertaining Bank of Ireland McKenna Cup final.

Kerry 2-18 Donegal 3-14: Ironic isn’t it that followers of the green and gold poured in to catch the first glimpse of David Clifford at senior level and yet departed celebrating a different DC.

A Daithi Casey point in the sixth minute of injury-time handed victory to Kerry at the end of which the hosts had 14 players on the field and Donegal one less.

One of Donegal’s most stylish and influential players during their golden spell, Karl Lacey’s time on the field has been decimated by injuries in recent years. But he’s still got the desire to recapture that winning feeling, writes Orla Bannon.

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.

Allianz FL Division 1

Keepers’ conundrum

Paul Keane lists five transfers that would turn the Allianz League on its head.

Donegal’s bitter Allianz League clash with Kerry last year was a one-off in terms of their rivalry, according to Paddy McBrearty, who admits he was lucky not to be among those sent off in Tralee.

For those of you who initially thought last Sunday’s Ulster final was another desecration of what was once known as Gaelic football, a question — name a game in recent memory in which both teams helped serve up a greater number of exceptional long-range points than what Tyrone and Donegal did in Clones?

In the gathering gloom last Saturday night, small groups of Donegal and Monaghan players congregated in the car park outside Kingspan Breffni Park to shoot the breeze. If Cavan town wasn’t such a traffic logjam, they may have gone separate ways earlier. Yet they seemed pleased to have the chance to chat.

Donegal 2-12 Fermanagh 0-11: Since emerging as a force five years ago Donegal have often demonstrated the ability to win games in devastating spells, and they did so again yesterday — this time with 14 men — to swat Fermanagh aside in Ballybofey.

Peter McNamara assesses the live matches this weekend.

Gaelic football has moved on, but the media and GAA officialdom are clinging to a past that has long since ceased to exist.

Stephen Griffin's injury-time point secured a 1-09 to 0-12 draw to seal Donegal's passage through to the Allianz Football League Division 1 semi-finals.

Donegal 1-13

Donegal 1-4, Monaghan 0-9: At half-time yesterday at O’Donnell Park in Letterkenny, the stadium announcer informed the crowd that Mark English had won silver in the 800m at the European Indoor Athletic Championships in Prague.

Donegal 1-4, Monaghan 0-9:

Donegal 0-12 Cork 1-8

Dublin avenged last year’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat, with a five-point win over Donegal at Croke Park tonight.

Donegal 1-15 Derry 0-12: Allianz Football League Division 1: When Rory Gallagher was appointed Donegal manager on Halloween night, the All-Ireland final loss to Kerry was still fresh in his players’ thoughts.

The nominations have been announced for the GAA GPA Football All-Stars - champions Kerry have 11 nominations and beaten finalists Donegal have nine.

It’s no surprise Kerry lead the way with 11 All Star nominations, two more than beaten finalists Donegal and National League and Leinster winners Dublin.

It’s been just over two weeks since Donegal turned the bookies odds on their head and delivered their finest display of the Jim McGuinness era, seeing off heavily-favoured Dublin with a pulsating semi-final performance that few outside the set-up saw coming.

Picture the scene.

There may never be a weekend like it again.

As football game plans go for underdogs, this was almost utopian.

Kevin Cassidy has described Jim McGuinness’ comparison of Dublin with Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea as "silly".

Paddy McBrearty kicked a late winner as Donegal scraped home in an intesnse Ulster derby to reach a third All-Ireland semi-final in four years.

Ryan McHugh insists his big brother Mark has "no regrets" over missing out on Donegal’s latest Ulster title triumph.

ULSTER SFC FINAL:

Donegal 0-15 Monaghan 1-09

Two days after the 2005 Donegal SFC final, Jim McGuinness gathered Naomh Conaill’s panel together in the shadow of Davy Brennan Memorial Park’s stand in Glenties.

Donegal 3-16 Antrim 0-12

The tackle is a skill by which one or more players may dispossess an opponent or frustrate his objective within the rules of fair play. A tackle is aimed at the ball, not the player. A tackler may use his body to confront the opponent but deliberate bodily contact such as punching, slapping, arm holding, pushing, tripping, jersey pulling or a full frontal charge is forbidden.