Canty ready for Donegal challenge

Cork captain Graham Canty is looking forward to Sunday's All-Ireland SFC quarter-final against Donegal at Croke Park, but expects a tough encounter after the Rebels prevailed by just a point in the sides' last Championship meeting.

Cork were 1-11 to 1-10 winners in that 2006 All-Ireland quarter-final encounter, on a day which saw John Hayes and Christy Toye hit the net for their respective sides.

Cork have an unblemished record in quarter-final ties, since the All-Ireland qualifier system was introduced in 2001.

The Rebels have accounted for Mayo (2002), Galway (2005), Donegal (2006), Sligo (2007) and Kildare (2008) in these last-eight ties.

Donegal's quarter-final record is not as impressive, however, with just one win in five appearances.

That single victory was a 0-14 to 0-11 win over Galway in a 2003 replay, after they previously drew 0-14 to 1-11 with the Tribesmen.

In total, Donegal have won one quarter-final, drawn two and lost two (2002 v Dublin and 2006 v Cork).

It has been four weeks since Cork's Munster final win over Limerick, and while Conor Counihan's men have been absent from the Championship scene since then, club action has dominated the activities of the footballers on Leeside.

"In Cork you are always going to have a huge fixture congestion and the clubs have to get their fair crack at it as well," said Canty, the 2007 All-Star defender.

"Since the Munster final we have been more or less full-time with the club. The other two weeks we have been preparing for the county.

"It's not ideal when you have two or three important club games to get ready for and sometimes it can be mentally hard rather than physically hard to do it.

"But we have come out of it now with no injuries and that was the most important thing."

And Canty is hugely mindful of the task ahead for the Rebels this weekend, paying respect to the way in which Donegal have bounced back from some poor displays earlier in the summer.

"Donegal were knocked out of Ulster fairly early from their very high standards. But since then, they have recovered very well and put two back-to-back 70 minutes together, beating very good Derry and Galway sides.

"Taking that into account, they have found consistency at the right time of the summer. They will be going into the game against us with a lot of confidence and rightly so."