Pragmatic Donegal will rule Ulster

IT only seems like yesterday since Donegal were the down and outs of championship football yet here they stand, entitled and ready, to claim their first Ulster Championship in nearly 20 years.

The story of how Donegal have recovered their spirit and purpose after a few shocking years should be the story of the championship but outside of their own county, they are making very few friends and winning even fewer admirers.

The pragmatists will point to the fact that Donegal won very little in the years when they were playing their football with those streaks of independence that could make — but more often broke — their team. There were games in recent years when Donegal had few peers in advertising the finer possibilities of Gaelic football but few teams had the same capacity to self-destruct either. Bitter experience, either self-inflicted or at the hands of Armagh, had dictated that Donegal folk always expected the unexpected when it came to supporting the county team.