Moran's men are rested and ready

GAA FIXTURES: Seán Moran talks to Mickey Moran, the Donegal manager, and finds him in upbeat mood

Ten years after Donegal were responsible for one of the big disappointments in Mickey Moran's career, he has the county on the verge of a first All-Ireland semi-final since that momentous year. Coach with Derry back then, Moran watched his team unexpectedly lose the Ulster final to their northwest neighbours.

Now he has brought Donegal further into the summer than at any time since. If the hype has been slow to swing behind the new generation of players - Moran was pointed in his reference to the contrasting coverage of '92 retrospectives and the current team - there's no doubt that it's arrived now.

"There is a great buzz up here all over the place," says Moran. "Even at home (in Derry) people are very complimentary and wishing me the best. People said to me here in Derry, 'we'd love to see Donegal win but it would have been an absolute injustice for either team to lose by a point'."

The fuss over where to stage the replay means that it was just as well that there has been a 12-day break since the draw. Moran also believes that this has been vital for the players.

"The match was so hot and so intense that it took the players a week to recover. I don't know what Dublin did but we didn't train for a while. Some of the players weren't even able to train for days. Even on Friday night the response was only just reasonable.

"It definitely couldn't have been replayed a week later. The passion and commitment were intense and how all the players maintained that pace was beyond me. A lot of players lost a lot of bodily fluids on the pitch. But at this stage I don't think it's about physical fitness or even football. It's about rest and mental focus."

Donegal are, along with Sligo, the least known of the quarter-finalists. Moran acknowledges this and the distance travelled since he took over nearly two years ago - coincidentally after managing Sligo. Last year's championship didn't get much beyond a cantankerous series of matches against Fermanagh.

But there were promising signs in the match that led to elimination, a qualifier in Newbridge against Kildare. After one of the summer's best matches Donegal lost by a single point. It would be a solid platform for the improvements that Moran had planned.

"We've come a long way. You don't change mindsets in one go and it took me a full year to get the lie of the land. I didn't put anyone out of the panel. But players did make up their own minds when they weren't able for the commitment.

"One of the best things I did was to bring in eight under-21s onto the panel and their enthusiasm rubbed off on the seniors players like John Gildea. In the league we were winning games that we lost a year before and didn't end up having to struggle against relegation."

As the manager points out, the battle on Saturday is likely to be as much mental as physical and in that regard he feels the team is well placed. "We're quite happy. Dublin didn't steamroll us; it was a titanic battle. We stood with them and had the winning of the game."

With Dublin having been contained the first day there is confidence in their opponents' camp that they have put a stop to or at least inhibited the Leinster champions' momentum. Not that Donegal are resting on unwise assumptions about the replay.

"On Sunday we met and watched a video and analysed it in different groups," says Moran.

"It was an exercise to find out the mental attitude as much as anything else. Four groups of players were pinpointing our strengths and weaknesses.

"It was very positive because players were being open and challenging each other. The mental attitude was very strong."