Donegal dump Monaghan out of the championship

Donegal 1-26 Monaghan 1-20

A second half surge from Donegal sees them through to the All-Ireland semi-finals at the expense of Ulster rivals Monaghan. They trailed by seven at the halfway stage, but looked the fresher side when the teams emerged after the break.

The sides were evenly matched on the scoreboard for long periods of the opening half and a Ryan McHugh point levelled things up at 0-8 apiece after 25 minutes of action.

The game flipped in the next few plays as Ciaran McNulty edged the Farney men ahead and Monaghan squeezed Sean Patton’s restart with extreme success. Stephen O’Hanlon grabbed the loose kickout to play through Michael Bannigan, who bagged the game’s first goal.

Ciaran Thompson fired over a second two-pointer, which was matched at the other end by Andrew Woods, who raised a second orange flag. Rory Beggan also landed a score from outside the arc, after the hooter, to give Monaghan a 1-15 to 0-11 half time advantage.

Donegal outscored Gabriel Bannigan’s men 1-3 to 0-2 in the first ten minutes after the turnaround, with Michael Langan, following a one-two with Michael Murphy, powering the ball to the back of the Monaghan net.

Langan got Jim McGuinness’ team back on level terms before Murphy slotted over a brace of scores, bring his tally to 0-4, to give the Ulster champions the lead for the first time since the 15th minute.

Donegal continued to pummel their provincial rivals and completed their incredible comeback with a series of scores to see six the difference when the hooter finally sounded.