Donegal made light of Rory Kavanagh's dismissal just before half-time to overcome Mayo in Ballyshannon.

Donegal 0-17
Mayo 1-7

The signs looked ominous for the home side when they trailed by 0-6 to 1-5 at the break and a man down after midfielder Kavanagh was sent off by referee Marty Duffy for a dangerous tackle on Kevin McLaughlin. But, in an amazing turnaround, they outscored the Connacht champions by 0-11 to 0-2 in the second half to collect their second win of the campaign and drag Mayo into the relegation dogfight in the process.

Colm McFadden and Michael Murphy led the comeback with 0-7 and 0-5 respectively, while Karl Lacey, Patrick McBrearty and Leo McLoone also got in on the scoring act. Mayo's misery was compounded by the dismissal of their full back Ger Cafferky on a second yellow card eight minutes from the end.

With Aidan O'Shea suspended, his brother Seamus took his place in the Mayo midfield and they were quickly into their stride with Conor Mortimer's 10th minute goal helping them to a commanding 1-3 to 0-1 lead after 25 minutes. With McFadden in fine form from placed balls, Donegal rallied to trail by two at the break, but still looked to have it all to do after Kavanagh saw red.

But against all the odds, they took over completely in the second period. By contrast, the scores dried up for Mayo, with only one of their outfield players managing to raise a flag after the restart - goalkeeper David Clarke was their other scorer from a free.

Donegal - P Durcan; F McGlynn, E McGee, P McGrath; A Thompson, K Lacey (0-1), L McLoone (0-1); R Kavanagh, N Gallagher; M McHugh (0-1), R Bradley, M O'Reilly; C McFadden (0-7), M Murphy (0-5), P McBrearty (0-2). Subs: M McElhinney for O'Reilly, D Molloy for Bradley, D Walsh for McBrearty.

Mayo - D Clarke (0-1); K Keane, G Cafferkey, K Higgins; P Gardiner, D Vaughan, L Keegan; S O'Shea, B Moran; K McLoughlin (0-1), A Moran, A Dillon (0-1); C Mortimer (0-3), A Freeman, E Varley (1-0). Subs: P Harte for Freeman, R Feeney for Keegan, C O'Connor for Varley, J Doherty for McLoughlin, M Conroy (0-1) for Mortimer.

Referee - Marty Duffy. Tweet

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