Donegal in fine fettle as final nears, declares selector Curran

Donegal will go into Sunday’s All-Ireland final against Mayo at Croke Park with a clean bill of heath.

Both squads undertook training camps outside of their counties as they finalised preparations for the September 23 showdown.

The Ulster champions returned yesterday from the four-day training break in their lead-up to the decider. They will undertake light training on Tuesday and Thursday this week as well as having tactical briefings ahead of the first senior decider in 20 years.

Selector Maxi Curran said yesterday: “Everyone is fine and at the minute it looks like we will have a full deck to choose from, which would be great as it would be a massive disappointment for anyone to miss it at this late stage.”

He revealed: “We were in Carlton House in Maynooth for two days, an excellent facility used by the likes of the Irish soccer team and the Irish rugby team, and even Real Madrid. We were then in the Johnstown House Hotel, in Enfield, Meath, which is another top-class facility and one that we have been using as a base for our games in Dublin of late. It’s good to continue with familiarity at this stage in the game and that makes things easier. From a training perspective, both are what we are after, with pitches and hydro facilities. Training four successive days isn’t something the lads would be overly familiar with but they seemed happy with the professional approach as we had a productive few days away from the hype at home.”

Meanwhile, the Mayo team are understood to have spent most of the weekend in a training camp in Athlone ahead of Sunday’s final. The squad played a final ‘A’ v ‘B’ trial match yesterday before James Horan and his selectors finalise selection this week. Lee Keegan, who dislocated his finger against Dublin, and Colm Boyle, recovering from a virus, are believed to be Mayo’s only fitness concerns.