Donegal rue goals

"You don't learn anything till you're beaten and we learned a lesson today," was the sombre moral of Donegal manager Declan Bonner's story as he congratulated a satisfied Offaly dressingroom. The Leinster champions now face Derry in this year's League final and will do so as the only unbeaten team left in the competition. They learned their lesson on a wet afternoon last August when unable to reproduce their best form against Mayo in the All-Ireland semi-final.

"Goals win matches," said Bonner glumly. "They got three and we got one. We made mistakes at vital times."

There were some references to the championship-fervour of yesterday's exciting set-to: Ciaran McManus, scorer of the day's best goal, admitted that "the pace of the game was unbearable, I'm out on my feet".

If so and the words of his manager Tommy Lyons are any guide, McManus is in for considerable discomfort in the weeks ahead. "We've a long way to go fitnesswise. Part of the looseness in our play is related to fitness. We were awful loose at times. We still haven't got over this problem which we didn't have last year of letting the opposition get good ball into the forwards. Tony Boyle got an awful lot of good ball and we'll have a good look at the video."

Young full back Barry Malone who was at sea on the irrepressible Tony Boyle would, according to Offaly selector Paul O'Kelly, "eat the video". O'Kelly praised Malone's brother Roy who looked well on the way back to last summer's form. "A number of his runs were like in the Leinster final last year and his distribution has improved."

Since then, the full forward has found time to a spot of modelling for Himself magazine: "Did his ego a lot of good," observed O'Kelly, "but maybe not his football."

His counterpart Tony Boyle was subdued despite an heroic afternoon and a contribution of 1-8 to the team. "Nobody likes losing semi-finals. We've lost three finals in the 90s and felt this could be our year but it wasn't to be. We had five goal chances that didn't hit the net; anything they seemed to kick hit the back of the net."