McGuinness’s Donegal have learned to think on their feet

David and Goliath has evolved to be a story about how ordinary people face powerful opponents, which may be personal battles to inner demons, and the decisions they make to overcome these.

The original story was about a Philistine warrior, six foot nine in stature, who was sent to resolve a deadlock with the Israelites during a protracted battle to split King Saul’s kingdom in half. The solution was to have the best warriors fight and the losing army would be slaves to the victor. None of the Israelites moved until a young shepherd boy stepped forward. The rest is folklore...

The parallels are obvious to today’s semi-final but where it resonates mostly for me is in two areas: firstly, the tactical awareness of Donegal, and secondly, how Dublin failed to take their opponents seriously.