Again they were coming into the game on a high, having shown they could beat Armagh . . . and again they lost their way, composure and temper. Back then it was Adrian Sweeney and Brian Roper who lashed out; last week it was Colm McFadden and Kevin McMenamin . . . while Roper again was out of control, even if this time he was only fighting his own game rather than any opponent.

When, you wonder, is the penny ever going to drop?

Judging by his substitutions midway through the second half, Brian McIver has obviously wondered the same.

Roper and Sweeney may each still have a role to play in Donegal's redemption bid this summer but it will be as bitpart players, just like they were assigned last summer and for most of this spring when the team played its most productive football.

It has become fashionable now in football circles, given the demise of Mayo and Donegal in their own provinces, to say the league is irrelevant but that is wrong. Waterford's steely-eyed finish in Thurles last week proved that, while the mastermind behind Donegal's demise last week . . . Mickey Harte . . . has always espoused the virtue of winning every game and competition you enter.

However, he always adds a proviso . . . a team has to win the league within itself, just as Tyrone did in '02 and '03 and Kerry managed last year training only once a week collectively . . . and privately Harte suspected that Donegal had won this year's league at full tilt.

He also felt that Donegal had read too much into their win in Omagh in that league.

One of Donegal's goals in the league had come from Tyrone gifting them the ball in the square and the other from a dubious penalty. Donegal might have won by six points but it had never been a sixpoint game, just as Harte knew that Tyrone's win over the same team a few weeks earlier in the McKenna Cup final had never truly been a 10point game.

Despite last Sunday, Tyrone aren't 11 points better than Donegal either. It is McIver's job to remind his team of that.

If they are drawn to play Armagh in the first two rounds of the qualifiers then, without the threat of the suspended McFadden (an option they didn't avail of enough last week), they're extremely vulnerable but, otherwise, they still have enough to beat everyone else in that hat.

Only Rory Kavanagh and Ciaran Bonner . . . who were both directly involved in 1-3 of Donegal's 1-7 . . . showed up in Clones last Sunday but the likes of Brendan Devenney, Neil Gallagher and Kevin Cassidy will hardly be as subdued again.

Overall, Donegal appear to lack the mobility and pace to win it all but they still have the talent and the obligation to have the kind of run the county enjoyed in 2003 and 2006 . . .and even 2002 . . . instead of allowing the season to disintegrate in the same manner as 2004 and 2005.

Tyrone's performance offered a statement of intent but it would be foolish to go overboard either. In 2004, they also played some devastating football.

The late Eamonn Coleman declared after their annihilation of Laois in Croke Park that nothing could stop Tyrone winning that year's All Ireland. Within days of that prediction, Tyrone had been derailed by Mayo. On their day that year they proved to be the most lethal team in football. The problem was, they were neither the most committed nor consistent. It's too early to say how they measure on that criteria for 2007.

The signs are encouraging.

All the big names were their old selves; Neil Gormley breaking up attack and attack and then launching counterattack after counter-attack;

Jordan bombing up and down that wing; Sean Cavanagh marauding through that centre; Owen Mulligan buzzing and moving . . . setting up three scores as well as taking three himself . . . and Brian Dooher kicking five points and being everywhere.

Dooher was actually only on the ball 19 times, well below his normal average, but the significance of those 19 touches was immense. Only once did he fail to do something constructive, kicking a ball over the sideline, yet a minute later he was embarking on a solo run and kicking a point straight through the heart of the Donegal defence.

Even more uplifting for Harte though would have been the performance levels of the prodigal sons. Dermot Carlin produced a superb display. Kevin Hughes initiated a litany of attacks . . . even if he couldn't quite manage to finish them . . . and Collie McCullough showed a playmaking touch that had been largely unseen to this point.

This could end up like 2004 for Tyrone. But it could also match 2003 and 2005.