Rory Gallagher has admitted that Donegal need to rebuild.

Gallagher, who still has another year to run in his term as manager, looks set to blood several more young players in 2017 amid speculation that a number of the old guard will follow Colm McFadden into retirement. 

"Donegal now has to rebuild as a county," he told the Irish News after the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final defeat to Dublin.

"I see a great future for Donegal football, at the minute there is a lot of strong players in the county.

"We showed great courage, but great credit to Dublin as they have shown that they can win matches all sorts of ways. We have a lot of players with a lot of mileage and Dublin have phenomenal athleticism and that can determine your tactics.

"We have to rebuild as a county after having reasonable success at minor and U21 levels."

The Fermanagh man felt Dublin's ability to convert the bulk of their scoring chances was the difference between the sides.

"We are obviously extremely disappointed to be out of the championship Dublin were the better team and we knew we were going to have to take every chance going and are disappointed that we missed a few chances even before we got on the scoreboard in the first half.

"At half-time we were 0-9 to 0-4 down, but I felt we should have had five or six points on the board.

"In the second half we threw everything at it and got the margin back to three, but to be fair to Dublin, they rode it out."

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