By Cian O'Connell

Donegal left Croke Park heartened on Saturday evening with Declan Bonner acknowledging the key roles played by experienced and emerging footballers in the triumph.

Michael Murphy's craft and Oisin Gallen's dash combined to register 0-11 of Donegal's 1-17 total in the Allianz Football League Division Two decider against Meath.

Another reason for satisfaction was the 1-2 mined by Jamie Brennan, who has enjoyed a splendid spring sprinkled with majors, but understandably Gallen's development was discussed post-match.

“He’s playing with huge confidence,” Bonner admits. "That’s on the back of four last week against Kildare. Playing superb football, he’s still very, very young.

“Still has a lot of learning to do but he’s playing up front along with the likes of Michael and that’s been great for him to be quite honest. Michael’s influence all over the team has been very important.

“I think he might have kicked two wides early on but Oisin’s a brave footballer, he’s a smart footballer. As I say, he’s very young, he’s only 18 years of age, but his feet are firmly on the ground and he works hard for the team. He’s been really good for us throughout the League."

Gallen and Murphy were both involved in the creation of Brennan's brilliant goal. “It was a really good goal and it was a huge score for us," Bonner says. "It was a brilliant move and finished superbly by Jamie Brennan. That’s Jamie’s third goal on the trot now. Michael’s influence is so important.

“He’s just a real leader. He brings so much to the group in terms of that leadership quality, the experience and just the quality. I thought his second-half performance was outstanding.”

Another important contributor was Neil McGee, who was introduced during the first quarter when Meath were dominating. “Neil came in and steadied the ship and added that experience in there and that was important to us,” Bonner remarks.

“It wasn’t easy coming in there to be honest as we were under the cosh. The one thing Neil has is experience and he’s been training really well over the last number of weeks. It was great to see.

“He played 60-odd minutes out there which was very important for us to get him on the pitch. it’s just that experience he lends on the field, himself and Paddy McGrath, which was important for us.

“We want to play an expansive game, but we also need to get cover and we weren’t getting it. Once we got it sorted out we started to get control of the game and in the second-half I felt we just bossed the game. I felt some of our score-taking was top class.”