It’s one thing to talk about Dublin not being fully stretched or tested this summer. It’s another thing to go out and actually do that, and even still no one could have expected Donegal to so utterly blitz them like they did here.

It made for another amazing game of championship football, and there’s no doubt Donegal were fully deserving winners. In the end they hadn’t just beaten Dublin but completely dismantled them – and that is an incredible feat given how good we all know this Dublin team is.

It was an ambush, really, nicely set up for them, and yet Dublin definitely lost their compose towards the end, too. The fact they hadn’t been properly tested so far definitely militated against them, because once Donegal got themselves into a commanding position, Dublin looked very ordinary.

The strange thing is that for a while in the first half it looked like business as usual for Dublin. They were cutting through Donegal with a succession of points and also had two good goal chances, too. Missing these would prove decisive, as Dublin could have been out of sight had those goals gone in.

It was obvious Donegal’s tactic was to pack the defence, force Dublin to shoot from a long way out, while also ensuring whenever Dublin did get close to goal, there were ample Donegal men around the ball. And Donegal never panicked, even as Dublin went five points clear. If anything they seemed to lure Dublin into a false sense of security.

Completely exposed

That’s because once Donegal’s counter-attacking game really came into force Dublin were completely exposed, especially their full back line. For example, no one seemed to be marking Ryan McHugh when he got in for their first two goals.

If anything Dublin looked too gung-ho on attacking, and once Donegal started overturning possession, and found men supporting their attacking runs, Dublin had no response. That is an exceptionally demanding game to play, yet Donegal have plenty of players able for it: Frank McGlynn, Anthony Thompson and Karl Lacey were all sensational on the break, and they also had the tenacity to get the ball to the right man.

Again Jim McGuinness deserves great credit. Donegal won so many of the battles against Dublin, even getting the better of Stephen Cluxton’s kick-outs. He also made the big call of not starting Paddy McBrearty, who instead made possibly a greater contribution when introduced as Donegal continued to press ahead.

Their work rate all over the field was phenomenal, as was the honesty of their effort, and again they had all the players willing and able to deliver on it. Michael Murphy again led by example, and while McHugh obviously stands out for his two goals, their effort built entirely on the collective, everyone from Neil McGee and Neil Gallagher and later McBrearty making a massive contribution. They know each other so well, have that belief in themselves from 2012, and once they got a grip on Dublin they were never going to let go.

Colm McFadden’s game is always built around confidence, and he got that back here too, helped by the fact everyone else around him was playing so well. On form, McFadden is one of the most accurate kickers in the game, and he showed that here.

Dublin made the mistake of trying to run through the middle of Donegal, who are actually masters of cornering the danger zone, and we saw that several times as Bernard Brogan and Eoghan O’Gara were snuffed out in front of goal.

Donegal didn’t seem to mind conceding points as long as they didn’t concede goals. They simply created this wall in front of the 45-metre line, and as hard as Dublin tried to break through, there was very, very little space to be found in there. Donegal had the centre so well covered Dublin had to push out wide.

Hard questions

Essentially, when all the hard questions were asked of Dublin, they just couldn’t come up with the answers. I suppose we all got a slightly false impression of Dublin given the fact they hadn’t been tested in Leinster. Donegal’s mental strength may have caught some of them by surprise, too, and for all the talk of Dublin’s athleticism, Donegal also beat them in the physical and fitness contest.

In the end there was nothing Jim Gavin could do. Their biggest problem was getting men in defence, so even though they brought in the replacements up front in the hope of scoring more, they were still conceding too much at the back.

It definitely marks a setback and a bit of a lesson for Gavin and his backroom team, but it’s probably fair to say it’s good for the game, nationally, that this unbeatable label that was put on Dublin has been so comprehensively removed. It’s possible too that by cruising through Leinster the minds of the Dublin players were affected, and once the real pressure came on as it did here, they just couldn’t cope. Frustration began to set in, as shown in the end by some poor shooting from Bernard Brogan.

It all makes for a fascinating All-Ireland showdown, the first time Donegal will have played Kerry in the final. Based on this display, Donegal might be the early front-runners, yet both teams will be gunning for the third Sunday in September.