Former Donegal All-Ireland winner Mark McHugh expects Saturday’s showdown in Castlebar to be “nip and tuck”.

Declan Bonner’s team battle hosts Mayo for an All-Ireland semi-final place in what is by far the tie of this weekend’s Super 8 games and McHugh doesn’t expect there to be much between the sides when all’s said and done at MacHale Park.

"They have the home advantage, but we've a massive advantage with Stephen Rochford being involved with Donegal at the minute," the Kilcar man told RTÉ Sport.

"When it comes to video analysis I don't think we'll have to look at it too much because he will know everything about the players.

"The match-ups are obviously going to be huge throughout the field; who picks up Michael Murphy, who picks up Ryan McHugh, and the same with Cillian O'Connor and Stephen Coen. It's going to be nip and tuck I think it's 50-50 going across that white line.

"My heart and my head says Donegal. If we get the injuries we're worried about cleared up, I think Donegal will go down to Mayo confident that we're a better team than Mayo. Other times they've been the better team, but the way Donegal are playing, with the Stephen Rochford factor, I think Donegal will win."

Join the hoganstand.com match tracker this weekend for live coverage of the last round of Super 8s fixtures, the All-Ireland U20 football final and both All-Ireland U20 hurling semi-finals.

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