McGee: It was like Ali v Foreman

Jim McGuinness was worried, damn worried, midway through that first half when Dublin were motoring through Donegal and popping over points at will from distance.

“God, you’d have to be,” he admitted.

Ryan McHugh didn’t seem to share his concern and McGuinness was to thank for that. McHugh credited his manager with instilling the sort of self-belief in his team that allowed them greet their tentative start as a nuisance rather than a disaster.

Once regarded as a bunch of fancy but flighty footballers, Donegal have morphed under McGuinness into the immovable object against which Dublin’s irresistible force petered out.

“It was a bit like Ali in the Foreman fight: absorb everything and try and stay in there,” said Eamonn McGee. “It was a big psychological blow for the Dubs to throw everything at us and to find themselves a point down [at half-time].

“They got a few goal chances and, in fairness, Papa [Paul Durcan] pulled off a good save. It was just a case of sticking in there, and I knew we would get our patch. And we totally profited from it when it did come along.”

Donegal had been here before, staring into Dublin’s soul, but the 2011 All-Ireland semi-final had ended with the Leinster side digging that bit deeper within themselves to eke a path through to September.

It was, McGee admitted, a defeat that left Donegal seeking redemption and McGuinness leaned on that loss of three years ago when plotting this victory route.

“We had to deal with Dublin but we also had to go and win the game,” McGuinness explained. “Three years ago we delivered a fantastic defensive performance but we only scored six points. We had to look at that. We did in 2012 in terms of moving our game forward.

“We knew Dublin weregoing to score today and probably score heavy. Because they normally do. They are very, very difficult to contain. So we had to be very positive ourselves and go and try and win the match.”

The ghost of 2013 has been well and truly exorcised and they progress to the final with the scalp no-one expected to see taken this year.

“It’s not going to do our confidence any harm,” McGuinness admitted. “It’s the same process for every single team we play. It doesn’t matter if you are Division 4 or the All-Ireland champions. Very quickly we have to get into that process.

“The last three weeks have been very intensive because we knew the challenge Dublin presented us.

“We worked very hard to deliver a performance and we have to restart that process now.”