Oisin McConville expects a smarting Donegal to put their best foot forward against Armagh on Sunday, but is hopeful the Orchard County will stick to their attacking instincts.
Seven weeks after their Ulster championship defeat to Donegal, Kieran McGeeney's side are aiming to back up their win over Tyrone last weekend and advance to an All-Ireland quarter-final.
The clash of the two Ulster teams is the plum draw in the second round of the qualifiers, and while Donegal were roundly criticised for their risk-averse approach to their provincial final defeat to Derry, McConville is expecting Declan Bonner’s side to improve with the knockout tie.
"I’m afraid of this game because as much as it has been negative from Donegal, they will be smarting and they are in the position Armagh going into the Tyrone game," he told the RTÉ GAA podcast.
"They are going to look at that game (against Derry) and go, 'hold on a second, what is the point in Stephen McMenamin having the most touches of any Donegal player inside the 14-yard line? Caolan Ward the second most?'.
"They are not going to have a shot, or play an incisive pass? They will go in there and recycle the ball. It’s a complete waste of time.
"If Donegal bring the energy and football ability they have, it will be a difficult afternoon for Armagh."
That being said, he is buoyed by what he witnessed at the Athletic Grounds last weekend as the All-Ireland champions were sent packing.
The absence of Niall Grimley, Kieran Kelly, Ciaran Mackin, Oisin O’Neill and probably Conor Mackin is asking a lot of the squad’s strength in depth, but wants his team to play with the same attacking ambition that served them so well last time out.
"They took a lot more chances that Tyrone did. Tyrone had multiple opportunities to kick the ball inside and they wouldn’t do it because they wanted to retain possession.
"Armagh lost a nice few of their kick passes and as much as everyone is talking about how beautiful some of the kick passes were into the forward line, Armagh turned some of them over. So what? It kept Tyrone honest.
"They weren’t able to just advance out, play all those nice areas they want to play in because they were worried about the space in behind them.
"It’s the mentality you go into the game with."
As ever, there will be a great deal of focus around restarts.
Donegal’s Shaun Patton has established himself as one of the best in the business, while his opposite number on Sunday, Ethan Rafferty, has used his previous experience as an outfield player to great effect, picking off two points against Tyrone and highly involved in their attacks.
"One of the things we (Armagh) struggled with the last day was winning our own kickouts. That’s not going to change and Donegal will go after Ethan Rafferty.
"He’s going to have a little more space though as far as Clones is concerned. Armagh need to go after Patton. If he kicks one or two over the top, so be it, even if they get a goal off it.
"The mindset has changed, but we can’t blink now. When I hear Kieran Donaghy talking after the game, all he talked about was ‘we’re just going to work really hard’.
"That’s how simplified it needs to be as far as Armagh are concerned."
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