Errigal Ciaran will be without two of their leading attackers for Sunday's AIB Ulster club SFC semi-final against Crossmaglen at Clones.

The Tyrone champions are planning for the meeting with the back-to-back All-Ireland champions without the suspended Damien 'Daisy' McDermott and Caolan Tierney, who is on holiday. McDermott was issued with a straight red card in Errigal's quarter-final victory over Ballinderry and must sit this one out.

Errigal boss Ronan McGuckin, who took the radical step of stepping aside for the clash with his home club 10 days ago, confirmed to The Irish Examiner that Tierney won't be returning from abroad for this weekend's game.

"He's on holidays and he's not going to be available to us," McGuckin said.

"Caolan agonised over it, it was something he had booked over a year ago, a three-week break. I wasn't going to put a block in his way, and he has decided to go, with my full support, but it's a blow to the team obviously."

Despite the losses, McGuckin still expects Errigal to give a good account of themselves against one of the best club teams of all time.

"Two players off your first fifteen, no matter where they are on the field, is hard to replace," he continued.

"But we would consider that we have a fairly strong panel, and we would hope to be able to cope with that. Obviously, going in against Crossmaglen, you need to be right on top of your game, but I would have full faith in the fellows that will be coming in for them.

"We actually made the point before the Ulster club campaign started that it is one competition that if you get a bit or a run in it, you can go through a fairly high turnover of players for a variety of reasons. So it was something that we had prepared for and expected to happen. What can we do? The dye has been cast and we'll just go out and give it our best and see where it takes us." Tweet

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