Meath legend Bernard Flynn has described Donegal as "possessed" after watching them train in his adopted town of Mullingar prior to their All-Ireland SFC quarter-final against Armagh.

The training camp was one of at least four the All-Ireland finalists have held this year, having also spent a week in the Algarve last April and five days in the Johnstown House Hotel in Enfield. They are currently on a five-night stay in the luxurious Lough Erne Resort in Co. Fermanagh.

Flynn, who managed Mullingar Shamrocks to a Westmeath SFC quarter-final replay victory over Tyrrellspass on Wednesday night, revealed at the launch of the app, GAAStars.com, yesterday that Jim McGuinness' men stayed in the Mullingar Park Hotel at the end of July and trained at Shamrocks' Springfield ground.

"I actually had the pleasure of watching Donegal for three days in Mullingar. I went to all their sessions. To see their men possessed, and focused and mean and aggressive, it was incredible," he said.

Flynn also vented his frustration with the standard of refereeing this year.

"Cormac Reilly (in Kerry v Mayo All-Ireland semi-final replay) got a number of decisions wrong but the only thing he did was to try and referee the game the way we all would like to see it refereed. I do think the inconsistency of the cards being given and not given is ludicrous.

"The three best games we had this year by a mile were three games when referees by and large let everything go. You ask anybody, that's the way they like to see it. The black card? Okay, people saying it's helping but how can it be helping with (Shane) Enright, a massive game-changer.

"He doesn't get the card he should have got and if there was a black card there it might have been different. He should have been sent off, he wasn't sent off enough. There would have been no Marc Ó Sé coming on, they would have been down to 14 men."

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