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That's certainly an alternate view to things. Another would be that Mayos weaknesses were identified correctly and targeted successfully.

I realise this is the smugness that has to be endured when we 're beaten in an AI final - by anybody.

Care to elaborate?

Sure. Mayos full back line is small in stature and suspect under the high ball. Donegal went for the jugular. Secondly Mayo lacked the forwards to craft a goal scoring opportunity so that door was shut from half time. Mayo closed a 7 point gap to 3 in the first half and a 6 point gap to 4 in the 2nd half. The main reason that Donegal appeared beatable in the final was nerves. Massive nerves throughout the first half. I am not discounting Mayos achievements in 2012. I just don't think they have the full back line or full forward line to win big. I saw Mayo twice this year in the flesh and watched 3 of their championship matches so I'm not basing this on the final alone.

That's certainly an alternate view to things. Another would be that Mayos weaknesses were identified correctly and targeted successfully.

Dia dhaoibh.
I've enjoyed reading this thread from the sublime to the ridiculous over the past 2 weeks or so.
Firstly, and very importantly I'd like to reiterate the huge amount of common ground shared between both Donegal and Mayo people. We've probably got more in common as people than Donegal do with some of their provincial compatriots and this is one reason I'm looking forward to Sunday. There simply isn't a single county in Ireland I'd rather lose a final to than Mayo.

Now to the football. O'Neill has had a good ould dig at the Mayo folk but his posts do register an admiration of Donegal 2012 which I welcome. In reality, I'd thought of posting on this and other forums in the lead up to the game over the past 2 weeks but there's been an abundance of bottom feeding around of late and it's difficult to try to have a debate around the finer points of next Sundays game. Of course, any debate about next Sunday serves only to whet the appetite and will have no bearing on proceedings but for what it's worth here's my 2c.

I think Donegal will win this game because they bring a level of intensity to the game of Gaelic football which no team in 2012 has been capable of dealing with. People will retort that I've bought into the hype but I'd consider myself a fairly well seasoned Gael and having watched Donegal in about 90% of their games to date the following ought to be noted.

1) League counts for nothing when measuring Donegal (they prepare for championship football)
2) The body shape of the entire panel (least so Michael Murphy) has changed dramatically over the past 12 months. Someone previously mentioned McFadden being well marked previously. I'd agree and retort that that was a very different Colm McFadden who could be man marked in that era by a very capable defender. Today I think it takes 2.
3) Donegal don't usually foul. It's become common knowledge that scoreable opportunities from free kicks are very few and far between against Donegal 2012. Look to the number of frees scored by Cork and Kerry in the previous two games for an example of this. To win this game Mayo will need to score regularly from play and not the placed ball.
4)  Donegal have not peaked. In general I feel they've improved from game to game this year and expect them to continue this trend on Sunday. The performance v Cork was far from polished and righting the mistakes therein will have been the focus of some of the past 3 weeks.
5) I don't believe any team plays 6-2-6 any longer or at least those who do don't last long enough to be analysed. In my own circle of discussion we hope that Mayo employ a traditional system but I don't believe Mayo or James Horan to be naive enough to do so. From what I've seen of Mayo this year and that's been 3 out of the 4 games they've played they seem similar to Donegal in the deployment of their half forward line, foraging deep for dirty ball and breaking at pace.

Comparing footballers from one team to the other doesn't really do an awful lot of justice either. Murphy is due a big game, is something I've heard bandied about from time to time but he's already had a number of them this year to date. His ball winning ability, distribution, link play and eye for a score as well as natural footballing talent make him the complete package. If we could clone him we'd find room for at least another 3 of him in our starting 15. He's our captain because he's our best footballer, and analysis which discounts his performance isn't accurate in my opinion.

There is also some sentiment in this thread that Mayo's all ireland final experience could see them through. I'd be inclined to think this the case had they won any of the previous encounters. This game will most probably be won by the best team. If that is the case I expect I'll be celebrating for the next 12 months with Sam in the Hills.