“Satisfied with the battle and naturally the result,” he said. “We played with a ferocious level, endeavour, hunger, heart and a lot of quality in the second half.

“We’re aware that if we don’t bring that level, there’s a gulf in standards.”

There looked to be a gulf in standards to begin with as Donegal rattled off a 0-5 to 0-1 lead and even after they lost wing-forward Caolan McGonagle to a second yellow card on 19 minutes, were still in control.

Jason McGee and Eoghan Ban Gallagher scored to establish a four-point interval lead and then at the start of the second half, Michael Langan pushed it out to 0-9 to 0-4.

But then Fermanagh started to get to grips with the situation. From then on, they outscored Donegal 0-9 to 0-1 and when Stephen McMenamin was black-carded, it meant that Donegal were down to 13 men.

Fermanagh, not lamenting the loss of the likes of Tomas Corrigan and Seamus Quigley, got to work, and scores from Ciaran Corrigan and Sean Quigley got them moving. The away team then made sure of the win thanks to points from Ultan Kelm and Ryan Lyons.

Donegal’s woeful record in the Cathedral town continues, with only two wins since 2007, while Fermanagh can start to look up — they are unbeaten in their first four outings of the league.

“It’s very difficult to play against 14 men behind the ’45,” Bonner said afterwards. “In terms of getting shots away and getting the scores on the board in the first half, we asked a lot of questions. When you’re down one or down two, it’s very difficult. Fermanagh dug in, stayed in the game and went on to win the match.”