Two years ago, Brendan Devenney scored a late, meaningless goal in a first-round Ulster championship replay against Armagh and afterwards he screamed at the heavens in frustration and rage. The Armagh boys left him alone, understanding that this was not a moment to taunt the Letterkenny man. Anyway, it didn't matter.

It looked as though Devenney would be one of several Donegal men to play out their careers without ever beating the Orchard county. But yesterday, he stood in the sunshine having scored the strangest winning goal of his sporting life.

"This is huge," he beamed.

"Every time we played it was Armagh, Armagh, Armagh. And to be honest, I don't know if they were a better team than us but their preparation and dedication was. You could tell from the stories you heard up there. But we have improved our commitment now under Brian (McIver) and that is no longer an issue.

"I think we got the ball rolling in the league but we had a problem coming off the back of the league final to get into championship pace. Still, I didn't see that performance coming because we owed Armagh so much and I thought we would have much more pace and power. But Armagh played it at their pace and controlled it and. only for their shooting, they should have been well clear of us. But we hung in there and got away with it."

At that point, Devenney had assumed midfielder Kevin Cassidy had made the defining contact for the goal that beat Paul Hearty. The Gweedore man wasn't sure and didn't really care. "Ryan Porter came in with five minutes to go and told me to push forward at any opportunity. I saw Brendan going to shoot and rather than give Paul Hearty an easy catch threw myself in there to be a nuisance more than anything else and thank God it went in. We were shooting wides when other days they would go over. I asked John how long was left and he said six minutes.

"I thought, 'Jesus, here we go. Where do we go from here.' But you know in games like that you will get one chance to score. And it came. That ball could have been in before it hit me - it hits my knees and was in the net. And I don't care who got it."

Joe Kernan probably knew this day was coming. How many times can you kill the same team? He stood near the dressingroom and considered the goal that will probably be blamed on his clubmate Paul Hearty.

"I've just been wishing Donegal luck and hope they win the Ulster title now. But the year is still open for us. We are not gone. We will regroup after this. We missed a few easy scores and were caught by a mistake. Paul Hearty is not to blame, and he has saved us often over the last six or seven years. I am disappointed for Paul but at the end of the day, that is what the game is about. You make mistakes and get punished."

"We didn't play badly today, we weren't hammered off the field. People were saying all along that we didn't want to go the traditional route, that we wanted the back door. Well, we are in it now."