Derry coach Chrissy McKaigue says the Oak Leafers face “a massive task” against high-flying Cork this Sunday at Celtic Park (1pm).

Ciaran Meenagh’s side are set to welcome the top-placed Rebels as they look to inflict them with their first defeat of the Allianz Football League Division 2 campaign and earn what would be their fourth win the process.

The bookmakers have Derry as 2/5 favourites (PaddyPower) to earn the home win after trouncing Offaly by 23 points last time out in their bid for promotion back to Division 1.

"We're happy with large elements of the performance (against Offaly) and we've had opportunities to play other lads too. The biggest thing for us is we got through the games relatively unscathed in terms of injury," McKaigue told BBC Sport NI.

"Now we've got to really prepare properly and diligently for Cork because we understand that is going to be a massive task with their size and their athleticism and there seems to be a bounce back in Cork football."

On the team’s performances thus far in the league, the Slaughtneil clubman added: "We were bitterly disappointed with many aspects of our performance against Meath the first day out. We sort of dusted ourselves off, got a really combative sort of gritty performance against Tyrone probably the quality at times we could brush up on.

"We got a really gritty performance against Kildare and testing conditions every way you would say, we made sure that we gave Offaly the full respect which we did, we prepared well and we got a good start. I think then that naturally led the game to peter out a bit."

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