Jim McGuinness hails Donegal star who has been 'a breath of fresh air'
Louth got lost en route to Ballybofey and ultimately lost their way in the second half to bow out of the Championship.
After staying overnight in Enniskillen, the Louth bus took a wrong turn and managed to end up in Sligo - 90km from Ballybofey.
Ger Brennan's Leinster champions stayed in touch with Donegal for the first half, but were blown away after the restart.
'Donegal just steamed through on a cruise liner and punished us for every error,' said Brennan. 'They're a superb team.'
Conor O'Donnell and Ciaran Thompson bagged the goals for Donegal, who outscored Louth 1-16 to 0-5 in the second half.
Brennan said: 'They obviously showed their seriousness and ability as potential All-Ireland contenders. So congratulations to them.
'And look at the second half, they just really upped their tempo. We weren't able to live with it.'
O'Donnell scored the opening Donegal goal in the 34th minute to give the home side a 1-6 to 0-7 lead at half-time in front of 15,369.
After Dara McDonnell drew Louth level, at 0-6 apiece, Shaun Patton arrowed a kick-out in the direction of Michael Murphy.
The flick-on fell for Ciaran Moore who sent O'Donnell scurrying away.
The Carndonagh man had his spot picked long before he pulled the trigger, riffling past Niall McDonnell with real precision.
However, Ryan Burns hit four points in the first half and when Sam Mulroy landed a free early in the second half, Louth were within a point, 1-6 to 0-8.
Donegal took charge, their purple patch kick-started by teenage corner-back Finnbarr Roarty's fisted point - his second of the game.
'He's like a breath of fresh air for everybody watching him,' said Donegal boss Jim McGuinness.
'He's always been a brilliant tenacious defender the whole way up through the ranks, but now he's playing at senior inter-county level and he's difficult to take the ball off as well.
'He's been excellent at that and very good agility and very good at avoiding tackles and he adds so much to our attack.'
Thompson, who was playing his 50th successive Championship game for Donegal, blasted to the bottom corner in the 52nd minute to seal the game.
Louth lost Peter Lynch to a black card moments later and Donegal reeled off the next seven points, including a two-pointer by Langan.
Murphy arrowed over a two-pointer and in-form-again Oisin Gallen landed five points as Donegal eased their way to the quarter-finals.
McGuinness said: 'We were clinical and done a good job to get over the line and get over the line with 20 minutes to spare, basically and give us a chance to get some players on the pitch as well that have been doing well in training.
'You want to be ruthless and you want to be clinical all the time and we were that in the second half.
'We took care of the ball better in the second half and that gave us more energy then to actually defend properly in the phases when it was needed.'
Donegal had Jason McGee back in the starting XV for the first time since the All-Ireland semi-final loss to Galway last year.
A half-time withdrawal was not a concern for McGuinness, who confirmed that the Corduff player was only ever set to play 35 minutes.
He said: 'We just wanted to get him in there and get him exposure to Championship football from the start and run through the warm up and straight into the game and hopefully that'll bring him on.'
After a magical year, including their first Leinster crown since 1957, it's season over for Louth and Brennan admits he will take some time to consider his future.
He said: 'I haven't talked about to be honest because it's all focus on the game.
'The journey so far with the lads has been absolutely incredible.
'I think everyone should sit down and review the game critically as a group because that's something, that process that we got into was something that we had to keep and then you try to plan from there.'
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