DONEGAL manager Jim McGuinness hopes the hurt of last year's 16-point defeat to Mayo in the All-Ireland quarter-final will motivate his side to produce a "big performance" in Sunday's decider.
The Tir Chonaill men spent five nights at a training camp in Fermanagh's luxurious Lough Erne Resort last week where McGuinness and his players fine-tuned their tactics ahead of the clash with Kerry at Croke Park.
"We are carrying a lot of hurt from last year," McGuinness told CelticTV.
"We were champions in 2012 and there were a lot of things that went on that we wouldn't have been happy about... a lot of circumstances that didn't give us the chance to prepare the team properly.
"They were rectified this year, but that [hurt] is still very fresh in the memory. The pain of being in that dressing room in Croke Park last year when we got annihilated by Mayo. A lot of soul searching had to be done over the winter months in terms of 2014 and thankfully the boys have really stepped up to the mark and given it everything in every training session this year.
"We find ourselves in the final and we really want to make the most of it. We want to do ourselves justice, do our county justice and we want to deliver that big performance."
The Glenties native believes Eamonn Fitzmaurice's Kingdom troops will be itching to claim the scalp of 8/11 favourites and secure their 37th Sam Maguire title.
McGuinness insists he had no problems bringing his players back down to earth after their emphatic win over Dublin.
"They are all very humble players and they know what this is all about," he added.
"Our lads won't be thinking of the crowd or Croke Park or the significance of winning our third All-Ireland. It will just be about what we need to do to win this game and the job in front of us.
"We have had the mantra over the last couple of years that we prepare for each game on its individual merits. We prepare for the opposition as best we can and then we turn the light back on ourselves.
"We are just trying to nail that performance. But there are no guarantees in sport. We could nail our performance and do everything 100 per cent and meet a top class Kerry team that pip you at the post.
"But if we do nail the performance it means we are going to be competitive and if you're competitive you've always got a chance of winning."
* Paul Durcan feature..............P62 Eamonn Fitzmaurice feature.....P60