Gabriel Bannigan was making no excuses after Monaghan’s second half collapse against Donegal.

The Farney men turned in a superb first half performance to lead Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final by 1-15 to 0-11 at the break, but were outscored by 0-5 to 1-15 after the restart as Donegal powered through to a semi-final meeting with Meath.

"The things that we were doing brilliantly in the first half, we just weren't able to replicate them in the second half,” the Monaghan manager lamented.

"There were handling errors, there were poor options taken. We were getting shots blocked down, we kicked more wides. We didn't seem to have the same hunger around the breaking ball. All of those things just went against us.

"We were trying to stem that tide and break the momentum that was with Donegal. We never managed to do that in the second half. They penned us in. We couldn’t get out.”

Banningan added: “It was definitely a game of two halves. We were brilliant in the first half. I think the first half performance from Monaghan was a glimpse to me of what this team is capable of, but we need to be able to put two halves like that together if we’re going to be able to take a team out like Donegal.”

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