Seven things we have learned from Kerry win as attention now turns to Down

1: Cut supply best way to limit David Clifford

Donegal’s Kingdom ambush came directly down to battering them at midfield. Indeed, across the entire first-half, Donegal collected eight of Kerry’s 15 dispatches. Donegal’s kickout press simply overawed Kerry with Michael Murphy, Hugh McFadden, Jason McGee, Michael Langan and Caolan McGonagle hammering Shane Murphy’s restarts. The indirect result of that, down the other side, was that David Clifford was starved out of the game with little to no possession coming his way. But near the end, when Clifford was allowed to get on a ball, he showed all that usual danger with a brilliant goal. But that was one of just six shots across the entire contest. And Donegal, through a collective effort, had managed to split both his scores on the day by 60 barren minutes. The effect of Donegal’s employment of four speeders in a high press was evident instantly as Shane Murphy, from his first kickout, took what felt like an age to size his options up. After all that anxious scanning, he eventually threw his hands up in the air and decided to just boot the thing long. And that was the start of his long afternoon.