By John Harrington

Donegal attacker Martin McElhinney has no desire to play the Ulster Final against Tyrone in Croke Park this year.

Headquarters hosted the Ulster Final for three years from 2004 to 2006 with Donegal playing in two of those Finals. And because there’s already a buzz building ahead of this year’s showdown against Tyrone, some have suggested it would make sense for Croke Park to host it because there’s bound to be a massive demand for tickets.

But McElhinney’s preference would be for the game to be held in the traditional venue of Clones because it would better replicate the intense atmosphere of Saturday’s Ulster SFC replay victory over Monaghan at Kingspan Breffni Park.

“There was some talk about making it a double header in Croke Park but I wouldn’t want to bring it here because the close proximity of the crowd in Cavan – the fans were in on top of you – creates a real atmosphere whereas if you bring it here it might lose that,” said McElhinney.

“At the end of the day we’re all from Ulster and we want to play our big games in Ulster. There was no discussion about it at all, it was never mentioned, but I don't think it's a runner. If you want to play in an Ulster final, you want to play it in Clones. It's a great day out in Clones and it's a serious pitch and we love nothing better than driving into Clones on a Sunday for an Ulster final.”

This will be the sixth year in a row that Donegal have reached the Ulster Final, and they’ve won three of the five they’ve previously contested. McElhinney admitted it’s a statistic that reflects well on this generation of Donegal footballers, but insists it will lose its lustre if they lose to Tyrone in two week’s time.

“Yeah, it’s a massive achievement, particularly for this group of players,” he said. “Down were the last team to do it I think and that was a serious team. Getting to the six finals is massive but it will mean nothing if we don’t go out and get the result against Tyrone, which is going to be a difficult task.

“Six Ulster finals in a row is a great achievement but if we were to win three and lose three that would be very disappointing. We'll be trying everything in our power to go out and get a win and that's the main thing.”

McElhinney has never lost a senior Championship match to Tyrone, but he still thinks they should be regarded as favourites going into this year’s decider.

“I wouldn’t have lost to Tyrone in the championship (senior) but I lost to them plenty of times under-age. Look, the way they’re going they haven’t been beaten this year and rightly so, they’re favourites for Ulster. We beat Monaghan the last day but we’re going to have to up our performance 20 or 30 per cent to beat them.

"Tyrone are always going to be there or thereabouts. They've had a lot of good underage teams in the last few years. They've introduced new players this year, they've introduced a lot of speed and pace in their team.

“Every day we go out, I don't think the margin has ever been more than two or three points against Tyrone in the last couple of years. They're definitely favourites for Ulster and they deserve to be favourites for Ulster. We'll just be doing everything in our power to get over the line.”