Slaughtneil captain Francis McEldowney can't wait to tog out at Croke Park alongside his boyhood friends.

McEldowney will get his hands on the Andy Merrigan Cup if the Derry and Ulster champions can get the better of Corofin in today's All-Ireland senior club football championship final and he is relishing the experience:

"This is something new for everybody," he points out in The Belfast Telegraph. "Going to play football in Croke Park with the boys you grew up with, the boys you've played football with all your life out on that pitch, to come this far is amazing.

"It's been some journey. It's been worth it. There's been a lot of hard work down through the ages, but it's well worth it now.

"Every year you go out, you target a Derry championship, same as every club in Derry. On any given day, you could beat any team in Derry, but it's the same for seven or eight teams.

"The last ten years, if you look at our own results, it's been a kick of a ball that we lost by in most of our matches.

"This year it's just reversed. There's been a kick of the ball in matches but we've been on the right side of them."

"Mickey [Moran] has come in and put a bit of belief in us. You have younger boys that have come in and helped the thing as well. We just never give up until the final whistle. You come to those tight matches, there's only a point or two in it, if you keep going until the end there's no reason why you can't come out on the right side of it."

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