***Sunday May 28 ***

Ulster SFC Quarter-Final

Derry v Tyrone, Celtic Park, 2pm

The red-hot rivalry between these two counties should ensure a hard-hitting, uncompromising game of football.

Motivation alone will be enough for Derry to pull off a shock, though. They need to perform at a level we haven’t seen from them thus far this year.

Relegation from Division two of the Allianz Football League suggests they’re not in a great place right now, and as a Division One team Tyrone should really be taking advantage.

When the teams met in the Championship last year Tyrone were comfortable 11-point victors, on a day when the naivety of the Derry defence was badly exposed.

They were hit on the counter-attack time and again by Tyrone, and you would expect they will be under orders on Sunday to sit a little deeper and not be caught too far up the field again.

Manager Damien Barton knows his team are underdogs going into this game, and is urging them to rise to the challenge rather than be overawed by it.

"Unless you are going to rise to the challenge, recognise it, react to it, there is no point in being there," said Barton. "We have to represent ourselves better than last year. I remember saying after the game that we weren't as fit, as fast or as strong as them.

"Only time will tell whether we get it right on the 28th. But certainly our focus is to win the game, although it's going to be very difficult.

"Every day, you have got to go out and perform. Tyrone will have to perform against us. Obviously, we will be starting as second favourites. We certainly will have to put in a big performance to beat them."

The fact that Tyrone struggled in the latter rounds of the League, losing their last three matches, having previously performed impressively means it’s hard to know what to expect from them.

They were especially poor in their last match, losing by seven points to Kerry, and it’ll be interesting to see how successfully they’ve worked on the flaws that were exposed in that match.

If their under-performing inside forwards fire then they should be too strong for Derry, but star man Peter Harte is wary of the challenge that’s facing them.

"Derry are always dangerous, Derry have as good footballers as anybody,” he said.

“You just have to look at what Slaughtneil did, and they were very unlucky not to win an All-Ireland club title. They're good footballers, and a first-round championship game in Celtic Park is a one-off game. We'll be very focused going in there to get the performance right.

"Last year was great, but it's over now. That was 2016, this is a brand new season, as you saw from the league, teams have already changed a bit, new personnel, new styles of play. We'll just be hoping to do our best in 2017, and look no further than Derry in Celtic Park."

TYRONE: Niall Morgan; Aidan McCrory, Ronan McNamee, Padraig Hampsey; Tiernan McCann, Rory Brennan, Peter Harte; Colm Cavanagh, Conall McCann; Kieran McGeary, Niall Sludden, Conor Meyler; Mark Bradley, Sean Cavanagh, Mattie Donnelly.

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