NAOMH Pádraig, Uisce Chaoin and Malin have already played out a draw in this year’s Intermediate Championship but Muff manager Dan McCauley expects there to be more ‘jeopardy’ when they meet this week.

It’s been a tight championship so far and Naomh Pádraig, who reached the All-Ireland Junior Final last term, have had no problem adjusting to Intermediate football.

They recorded wins over Bundoran and Buncrana and drew with Malin before losing to Burt last week.

Despite that result, McCauley is pleased with where his team are at.

“We’re delighted with how it’s going. It’s the first year in the Intermediate for this young group of players of mine.

“We didn’t know what to expect going into it. We have the belief that we can win it and that’s the way we treat every competition we’re in.

“We have had a good championship so far. We had a bit of a hiccup on Sunday but we were missing a few players who we didn’t risk.

“We knew we had the job done after the first three matches.”

Jonny Toye and Drew McKinney sat out the Burt match but could be in contention for this week while Donegal Under 20 player Kevin Lynch is getting back to fitness after an injury-ravaged campaign. Caolan Harkin did go off against Burt and will be assessed over the course of the week.

McCauley feels his side are battle-hardened heading into the knock-out stages.

“We had massively tough games.

“We had to travel to Bundoran and we had to go to the Scarvey to play Buncrana. We got two wins and our performances away from home have been excellent.

“The Malin game at home was a typical Inishowen derby. It was a ding-dong derby.

“We went ahead early and they came back at us.

“The second half was score-for-score and we got two points in injury-time to tie the match.

“They’ve been tough battles and I think they have prepped us really, really well heading into the quarter-finals.”

Paul Gallagher’s Malin welcomed Taylor Bonner, Ryan McGeoghegan and Ciaran O’Kane back into their squad last week against Bundoran and they are building.

They drew 0-16 to 1-13 with Muff at Ture, but McCauley doesn’t feel that fixture will have a massive bearing this time out.

“It will be a different type of game. There’s nothing between the two teams.

“There’s more jeopardy now. It was the second group game the last time and I suppose the two of us were coming off wins so there wasn’t as much pressure.

“Whereas now, it will be a completely different atmosphere and I would imagine there will be a massive crowd.

“It will be more tense. We drew, then we both beat Buncrana by two and both had late wins away to Bundoran, so there’s very little between us.

“It’s just on the day now and who manages to get their dangermen on the ball more is what it will come down to.

“They have Josh Conlon and Christy ‘Fildara’ (McLaughlin) and we have Jonny Toye and Caolan McColgan.

“Whichever big players stand up the most will win it for their team.”