McGuinness pleased to 'go one step further'

Jim McGuinness believes Donegal’s emphatic All-Ireland SFC semi-final victory over Meath made amends for their agonising loss to Galway at the same stage last year.

Playing their 10th championship game of the season, the back-to-back Ulster champions showed no signs of fatigue as they streaked clear in the second half to win by a whopping 20 points and set up a final showdown with Kerry.

“It was a long road back, a hell of a long road back, but delighted to get over the line and obviously go one step further than last year,” the Donegal manager told the media at Croke Park.

“We knew we had trained well, I suppose without covering old ground again, the difference between a one-week turnaround and a two-week turnaround really. You’re going to get one session done in a one-week turnaround, and I would say with a two-week turnaround, you’re looking at five or six.

“That’s massive from a coaching point of view, trying to get the information pulled together, but to get out on the pitch and repeatedly work on the things that you feel would be important in the game.

“We spoke about it as coaches in the hotel this morning that it feels like there is a performance in them because a lot of the things that we were looking to achieve in the game, there was a consistency in our training.

“So that’s brilliant and obviously we get another two weeks now into the final and hopefully we can go down the same road.”