Derrygonnelly Harps will bid to make a first ever Ulster Club SFC Final this Sunday when they take on Down champions Kilcoo at the Athletic Grounds.

The Harps have seen off Cargin and Trillick to date to reach the last four of the competition but this could be their toughest test so far against a Kilcoo side who are the bookmakers favourites to land the provincial title.

Derrygonnelly manager Sean Flanagan though is pleased with how preparations have gone since that win over the Tyrone champions at Brewster Park.

"We have a wee bit of familiarisation work to do this week but we have tried our best to get to know our opposition and we are happy that training has gone well and we don't have any injuries. The intensity and the pitch of the preparations have been very good so we are happy going into the game," he said.

That victory over Trillick was the club's biggest on the provincial arena and Flanagan says that while they enjoyed that night, by Monday the focus was firmly on Kilcoo.

"We feel that occasions like that are meant to be enjoyed and it would be pretty depressing if they came on a high after a win like that and we took the thing down straight away. We let them enjoy that Sunday and then the focus restarted on the Monday and I have to say they were totally tuned in to the next challenge."

It was an excellent performance that took Derrygonnelly past Trillick and Flanagan had plenty of positives to take out of the game but within that Flanagan also acknowledges that there are areas that they need to improve on if they are to come through this Sunday's contest and progress to an Ulster final.

Trillick scored three goals and created a couple more goal chances in that game and with Kilcoo possessing attacking talents such as the Johnston brothers Jerome and Ryan along with Conor Laverty and Paul Devlin they can't afford to be as generous at the back.

"I suppose when we looked back at the game, there were things that we did very, very well against Trillick and we have been able to focus the boys on those things that we would like them to continue doing. But Trillick managed to get in behind us a couple of times and maybe that happens for a variety of reasons and its not just down to one thing. We would have looked at that and we know that Kilcoo are a team that thrive on goals so we would be aware of that need not to let them in behind," he stated.

Indeed, Flanagan expects this Sunday's encounter to be a less open affair.

"I was surprised looking back at how open the quarter final was and I think that Kilcoo keep things a lot tighter and they break with really impressive speed so that will be one aspect that we will have to be very aware of. Trillick and us more or less went toe to toe but I don't think that's how it will go this Sunday."

He doesn't feel though that there will be much dividing the sides with Flanagan believing that it will go down to the latter stages.

"It is a game that I expect that it will be the last six or seven minutes that will be telling in the game.

"Look, you want to be there as the game reaches that period and we would feel that even against Trillick that our decision making stayed pretty good through those periods when the game was there to be decided. We would have confidence that we would make the right decisions in that period of a game," added Flanagan.

Derrygonnelly's strength in their two games in Ulster so far has been their dominance both in the air and on the ground in the middle third of the pitch but Flanagan feels that it is at either end of the field that the game will be decided. As he has stated, they can't afford to cough up goals while at the other end they need to take more of the chances that come their way.

"Ultimately, I would like us to have a good percentage of scores from play from opportunities that we present, I think we would need a good percentage on that front, possibly better than we have been getting and the other key thing is not conceding any goals," he concluded.