Mayo 2-13
Donegal 0-11
A game settled either side of the half-time whistle, Mayo booked their spot in the All-Ireland football semi-final with an eight point win over Donegal.
Aidan O'Shea's brilliance was only surpassed by the score of the day as Lee Keegan lifted the ball over a helpless Paul Durcan to all but seal victory for the Connacht side.
Up until the first goal, it was actually a tight game.
Donegal remained in touch throughout, their defending more suspect at points and reminiscent of their display against Monaghan rather than against Galway.
It was all level at 0-2 after 10 minutes and there was a feeling that a moment of inspiration would be necessary to separate the sides.
Until that point, scores from Cillian O'Connor and Aidan O'Shea were matched by the accuracy of Michael Murphy and Christy Toye.
Heading into the interval it was Mayo leading by a point, but as the Ulster side were focused on the break, O'Shea was focused on extending Mayo's lead.
He gathered the high ball excellently and with three defenders around him still managed to barge his way through before sending a low drive past Durcan.
Having dealt Donegal the first big blow of the game, it was up to Keegan to deliver the second.
In front of a crowd of 61,784, Keegan gathered the bouncing ball on the left hand side and facing into the Hill delivered a beautifully lobbed shot into the top right hand corner.
This was game set and match as the remainder of the game Donegal struggled to muster anything that resembled a meaningful challenge.
Donal Vaughan was shown a black card and Kevin Keane a red right at the death but these were of little difference to the outcome of the game, Mayo had it wrapped up by on 40 minutes.
A fair outcome and Mayo will now surely be seen as one of the driving forces in the championship, if they had not been already.
Mayo: D Clarke, D Vaughan, G Cafferkey, K Higgins (0-01), L Keegan (1-02), T Cunniffe, C Boyle, S O’Shea, T Parsons, D O’Connor, A Moran, K McLoughlin (0-02), J Doherty (0-03), A O’Shea (1-00), C O’Connor (0-03, 2f).
Subs: C Barrett for Cunniffe, P Durcan for Vaughan (BC), A Moran (0-01) for B Moran, A Freeman (0-01) for S O’Shea, K Keane for Cafferkey
Donegal: P Durcan, P McGrath, N McGee, E McGee, R McHugh, K Lacey, F McGlynn, N Gallagher, C Toye (0-01), H McFadden, O MacNiallais, M McHugh, P McBearty, M Murphy (0-08, 5f, 1 ’45), C McFadden
Subs: A Thompson (0-01) for N McGee, M McElhinney for Toye, L McLoone (0-01) for MacNiallais
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
