James McCarthy expecting ‘humdinger’ against Donegal

James McCarthy is looking for Dublin to deliver a "big performance" in Saturday night's Allianz FL Division 1 semi-final against Donegal in Kingspan Breffni Park (7.15, Live TG4).

The Dubs defeated Roscommon and Galway while drawing in their Round 2 game against Kerry to set up Saturday's clash.

Donegal, for their part, have beaten Tyrone (0-18 to 0-16), drew against Monaghan (1-20 to 4-11) and also with Armagh (1-16 each).

The Ballymun Kickhams clubman feels that Dublin "haven’t really played particularly well" for an entire 70-plus minutes in their games to date.

"Don’t get me wrong, we’ve played 10 or 15-minute periods where we’ve played really well but we haven’t put a really strong performance together over the whole 80 minutes.

"I think we’re getting to that point where we’re definitely getting better as we go on. Yeah, look, we definitely hope to have a big performance on Saturday and that would set up the season really well."

Looking ahead to Saturday night's opponents James added: "They are a really strong side, young side, loads of good footballers, they have been showing good form.

"Obviously they were disappointed with how the Championship finished last year, defeated by Cavan in the Ulster final, but they are a team that we’ve had really tight games with over the last three or four years in all of the League matches.

"I think we won by a point last year, (the) year before was probably similar — a point either way.

"So it will be a humdinger of a game on Saturday, no doubt."

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James McCarthy was speaking at the partnership of Go-Ahead and Dublin GAA. For more information on Go-Ahead Ireland, please visit goaheadireland.ie