TYRONE asked the right questions. Donegal, eventually and just about, found the right answers.
That’s the brief synopsis of how Jim McGuinness felt about a very different Celtic Park victory to when they dethroned Derry eight days previous.
The plans laid by Brian Dooher were working to perfection. Donegal were making no impact on the game. They had just five points at half-time, no foothold in the game really, no goal threat.
With 50 minutes gone, Tyrone had just hit three points on the bounce to re-establish the same size of a lead that they’d held at the interval.
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But Donegal found ways. Brendan McCole’s left-footed swipe brought it to extra-time where the effects of having had an extra 20 minutes last weekend really began to tell on Tyrone, who scored just 0-4 in the final 45 minutes of football here.
“We were in that spot at half-time [0-8 to 0-5 down], Tyrone were brilliant in terms of their gameplan, asking all the right questions, not allowing us to get into a flow,” said McGuinness.
“They had the threat of the goalkeeper coming out and over the top, so very pleasing from our point of view that we found a way to win it and I think from the half-time period onwards, we kind of grew into the game a lot better, we kept the ball a lot better, we found those moments a lot better, our decision making was much better.
“We can still improve certainly. I felt the longer the game went on, the more confident I felt that we could get over the line, even though it was one of those games that ended up just being a cliff-hanger all the way. Just absolutely delighted.”
Everything Derry had done wrong, Tyrone learned from.
They didn’t give Donegal the same opportunities and that left McGuinness’s side needing to find other avenues.
“We had scored the goals the last day and a lot of the goals came in transitional moments so we knew that those questions were gonna be asked.
“Tyrone just kept the ball very well. They were very patient themselves.
“They looked like a team that had won an All-Ireland a couple of years ago, they had the smarts, they knew what the game was all about and understood that they’re good enough to go into this type of environment and play that type of a game and ask those questions.
“There is no easy team, there’s no easy situations. Sometimes you have to suck it up and find a way to try and respond to it, that’s what a lot of the first half was about,” said the Donegal boss.
It will be his first Ulster final since the 2014 win over Monaghan but for all their youth, the vast majority of the players at his disposal have been there on the big day in Clones much more recently.
They took Derry to the wire two years ago before losing in extra-time.
A return to those days seemed a million miles off during their annus horribilis last year, but the sea of green and gold on the Celtic Park pitch and how vastly they outnumbered Tyrone’s support were indicative of a complete sea change.
He expects to have Shaun Patton available for the clash with Armagh, a repeat of the Division Two decider that Donegal won by a point having drawn in the Athletic Grounds earlier in the league.
“Two weeks will feel like three months for us now in terms of preparation for this one,” smiled McGuinness.
“And a lot of the analysis is already done because we’ve played them twice already, so we’re not starting from zero.
“We didn’t play Tyrone in the league this year so we have an opportunity now to quickly get up to speed now with Armagh, and obviously that works two ways.”