By Cian O'Connell

Martin McElhinney is hoping Donegal's vast Croke Park experience can be a factor during the remainder of the All Ireland SFC.

Rory Gallagher's team, beaten by Tyrone in a tense Ulster decider, face Cork at the Jones Road venue on Saturday.

McElhinney is delighted that Donegal return to action at GAA headquarters. “That's it, yeah, and we're lucky enough that we're used to playing in Croke Park this last couple of years," McElhinney said. 

"We like it. Who wouldn't like coming up here and playing at weekends, particularly All-Ireland quarter-finals and the last 16 and that kind of stuff. 

"We know Cork's going to be a massive proposition. They've got a good bit of confidence. They got beat against Tipperary the first day out and they've got a couple of wins under their belt now. That kind of helps. 

"There's nothing like playing games week in, week out to build confidence and get people more organised and that kind of stuff. We know they're going to be hard to beat and we're just looking forward to them."

Tyrone's late rally in the provincial final means McElhinney classes that as one of the toughtest defeats Donegal have suffered.

“I think that was probably the hardest Ulster defeat now out of them all," McElhinney admits. 

"We could have won and, as I said before, it's the sixth Ulster final now in-a-row and we've lost three and won three of them so we're kind of getting used to losing them and to winning them so it's not a nice place to be. 

"But the main thing that we had is we're lucky to have another match now to try to redeem ourselves.

"The way we played, we were happy enough with the way we played. We did a lot of things right for most of the game and then to get beat by two points in the last couple of minutes was just devastating, particularly the way this team has kind of been written off. 

"We still believe that we're one of the top teams in Ireland and we still want to prove people wrong. We were so close, but that's over. The game is done and dusted and we can still redeem ourselves against Cork."