Toye: minors gave us a lift

Dublin's Michael Darragh Macauley and Christy Toye of Donegal. INPHO

Christy Toye has revealed how the Donegal minor team's victory over Dublin in the Croke Park curtain-raiser inspired the seniors to complete a famous All-Ireland semi-final double.

"It's always the case with the minors in the dressing-room," said the veteran forward, who made a huge impact after coming off the bench late in the first half.

"If you hear that they've lost there's a bit of a sombre silence and when we heard they won a bit of a cheer went up and that always adds to the confidence."

The St. Michael's clubman also spoke about how bookies odds of 6/1 had a galvanising effect on Jim McGuinness' underdogs.

"The general public out there mightn't have given us much of a chance, but we don't listen to that. We just concentrate on what we're doing ourselves in training sessions and meetings to develop the game-plan.

"We just looked at it from the point of view of developing a strategy of how we were going to beat Dublin just like we do before every game."