Anger over Campbell stirs victors

Now here's a first: the crowd of press men waiting outside the Donegal dressing-room for a quick quote are suddenly ushered inside. The players are still dressing and the room is steaming as Charlie O'Donnell, the county chairman, launches into a 10-minute broadside about how unfairly Paddy Campbell has been treated.

The full back was suspended for four weeks for an incident in the Ulster semi-final against Derry. That suspension, however, was handed out in retrospect almost a month later. O'Donnell details Donegal's discontent, emphasising two points: Campbell should have been cleared on a technicality as he should have been banned for eight weeks as he was sent off this year in the league; and the CDC didn't adhere to the recent congress recommendation on misapplication of the rules.

The county board will meet this evening to decide their next action - which could yet include a call to the DRA. Asked what he said to his team at half-time that inspired them to dominate the remainder of the game, manager Brian McIver replied:

"All we had to talk about was Paddy Campbell. I mean I still can't explain it. If what Paddy did deserves a month then I think the CDC will spend a great deal of time between now and September reviewing incidents all over the country.

"How can you take an incident like that and decide the man gets a four-week suspension? He hit a slap on someone's privates, which happens 10 times in very match. If that deserves a four-week suspension then it's time to wise up."

McIver hardly wants to talk about this victory over Fermanagh - and quarter-final prospects: "Sure we'll only start thinking of Cork now. We were a little rusty in the first half but we were never going to come to Brewster Park and win easy. As it turned out it was just a very tight game and it became a matter of grinding out a result."

The main controversy here - Ciarán Bonner's heavy tackle that ended Eamon Maguire's game - was played down by manager and player.

"Ciarán Bonner was pushed into the railings," says McIver, "and got badly hurt. He game back onto the field and ran into the man. Hopefully, the player will be okay."

"There was nothing meant by it," says Bonner. "I thought it was a fair shoulder, and if the crowd thought different there's nothing I can do about it."

Fermanagh manager Charlie Mulgrew didn't want to overplay the incident either: "Losing Eamon was a big loss, because he was the only one causing a threat. But I can't say it lost the game for us. All I can say now is that Donegal won and good luck to them.

"We just found it very difficult to create space, and we just couldn't get a platform at midfield. So the ball we kicked in was very poor, and as a result it came straight back out again.

"But our handling was terrible as well. We slipped and slid ball, so we just weren't at the races. I'm sure there's multiples of reasons for that but everybody goes out to do their best. Unfortunately we just didn't have enough guys who came even close to their best."