The Ulster champions sealed their progress to the semi-finals with an ultimately decisive 1-23 to 0-18 victory over Louth in Croke Park this afternoon.
When McGuinness met the media immediately afterwards, he was initially under the impression that their next opponents might depend on the outcome of the ensuing Kerry/Derry quarter-final.
However, once he was informed that it will definitely be Galway, he remarked: “OK, so I know Pádraic Joyce very well, which will be good. We watched the match (against Dublin) last night, and we were talking earlier – I don’t think there were many people that would have given Galway much chance at half-time.
“But they did; they believed in themselves. And they brought a huge amount of quality and composure to the game in the second half. And belief – that’s probably the most important thing.
“And they’ve had a really, really challenging season in terms of injury. I’ve spoken with him (Joyce) once or twice during the season, and he was always trying to shake those injuries off because he believes so much in his players.
“So that will be a huge challenge for us. But one, again, that we will have to relish.”
Reflecting on today’s performance, McGuinness expressed overall satisfaction with one minor caveat – the concession of 18 points.
“Obviously we’re extremely happy to be in the semi-final. At the beginning of the year, if we were told that, we would have taken your arm off so we have to be very thankful for that,” he said.
“To post 1-23 in a quarter-final, that’s something we would be very, very happy with as well. The modern game, the way it goes, this man (sitting beside him, Ryan McHugh) has got tagged very heavily in a couple of games, and that’s the way the game has gone.
“So you need that spread of scores coming from all over the place, and thankfully we got that today. People were popping up all over the place, which is very, very important,” he added, alluding to the fact that Donegal had 12 different scorers.
“I think defensively, we conceded 0-18 and Louth looked very threatening and very dangerous at times. So there are certainly areas there that we’ll be able to go back and look at. But I suppose the most important thing in championship football is to progress – and once you progress you’ve got a chance to sort things out and make them better for the next day.
“So we’re delighted to get over the line. Delighted for the supporters, the people of Donegal, here and abroad, that tune into the watch the team all the time and give us massive support.
“It’s another fortnight, there’s a month to go in the competition; it’s another fortnight we’ve bought ourselves and we must now try and make that count.”
