Down aiming to skin Ferm

DOWN can get their Ulster Championship underway with a win over Fermanagh to progress to the semi-finals, when they travel to Brewster Park, Enniskillen on Saturday at 4pm.

The Mourne men were unfortunate to be relegated this season but they can take solace from beating some of the big guns during their League campaign and when it came to must win games they delivered and if they carry that attitude and level of performance on Saturday they should have too much for Fermanagh.

The hurt from relegation should have subsided and focus on Ulster become sharper but that doesn’t mean that they can’t pull the positives from the Division Two campaign as coach Mickey Donnelly points out.

“We had given ourselves a mountain to climb having to beat Monaghan regardless. Monaghan are one of the better teams in the country, and have consistently been a Division One team, so to bring it down to the last game, it was always going to be very, very difficult.

“I think you have to take satisfaction out of the fact that, we needed to go to Clones to get a result and Monaghan still needed something out of the game to guarantee promotion. It was a hell of a good performance, so I think you have to take that satisfaction,” said Donnelly.

“It's disappointing to go back to Division Three, but I think we showed in all seven games that we were competitive and that we were certainly at the right grade. We were chatting Gabriel Bannigan earlier on there and he said Monaghan stayed up one year on four points.

“If you look at it historically, even look at Armagh, the All-Ireland champions, Armagh went from three to two and back to three before they got a bit of a, not a stranglehold, but even just finding yourself establishing (your place), I suppose that's frustrating for us.

“It would have been lovely for them lads just to get another year, and again with the teams coming down out of one, it makes it even stronger. Like Derry and Tyrone are in Division Two next year - it's going to be a very, very competitive division and it would have been lovely to play in those types of games.

“But we are where we are, and we have to take a wee bit of satisfaction out of it. None of the seven performances do we come away from it saying, 'that was a horrendous performance', some of the games were a wee bit substandard in terms of standards set for ourselves, but ultimately we were competitive in all seven games and it gives us a mini bounce if you like, going into the Championship.”

This year, Down beat Cork, Westmeath and Monaghan, were caught late on against Cavan, rallied too late against Meath and Roscommon proved too string down the homes straight, but that was thought of the strongest Division Two for long time.

“Westmeath beat us in the league final, we drew with them in Mullingar, said Donnelly.

“They were decimated this year by the players they lost, absolutely decimated, and still were highly competitive in all games. There are no bad teams when you get to that level, and as I've said this before, I think the way football is now, from one, two, three, four, across all four divisions, teams are getting so well prepared now, you know, there's high quality of coaching, club structures are stronger in all counties, and as a result, teams are more competitive.”

New rules enhancements has benefited some teams more than others, but Donnelly feels the tweaking on the goalkeeper has helped his team but also feels the fast pace of the games now is right on Down’s wavelength of thinking.

Down have pace all over, with Oisin Savage, Celium Doherty, Daneil Guinness, Pierce Laverty, Caolan Mooney, Patrick Brooks, Danny Magill and Ryan McEvoy or Odhran Murdock are no slouches when they get motoring.

Drumgath’s Ronan Burns has been a useful fly-keeper and great shot-stopper and backed up by John McGovern and before that Niall Kane, the number one jersey has been in safe hand, no pun intended, in recent years.

Patrick McCarthy will get the marquee forward marking gig against Fermanagh and while Saval’s Pat Havern, John McGeough, Aaron McClements and Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan are all natural scorers, they’ve not had to rely on marquee forwards.

“I suppose the big change obviously was the change to the goalkeeper rule,2

“The league was five sevenths of the way through, but again, we can't really complain about that. We really struggled against Meath, who had the goalie up, and we couldn't get our hands on ball at a vital stage of the game at the start of the second half, whereas Meath have actually lost their last two games now that the rule has tweaked again, and we've won them.

“I think the game need to change, I think the three-up definitely gives the game structure, I think the solo and go was really working well, speeds the game up, speeds the transition up. it's definitely a lot more frantic, like in Clones yesterday, when the end of the match came, you were nearly taking a breath because there was so much going on, between substitutions and added time and games going on in other venues, and the transitional nature of the game, it's just frantic.

“Even our bigger players are athletic, the likes of Odhran [Murdock], the likes of Pierce [Laverty], the likes of Pat [Havern], the like of Dan Guinness, they're big guys but still can cover the ground very, very well, and then obviously we've got some of the speed merchants as well.

“I still think the rules suit if you've got natural inside forwards, which is maybe something we don't have the calibre that other counties do. But there's more than one way to skin a cat, so we've just got to make sure that when we turn the ball over, we make sure our transitions are really good, and we try and get something out every attack.”

Down will have to keep close tags on Josh Largo Ellis, who is a sharp shooter, while Garvan Jones, Darragh McGurn, Paul Breen and Ryan Lyons are lively up front. Declan McCusker and Lee Cullen like to get up the wings and this where Down will likely turn play over and counter.

It won’t all go Down’s way but they have the talent and should possess the appetite to do enough in the tricky ground, especially as the Mourne men have a clean bill of health to pick a squad from.

“I think a lot of credit has to go to Aaron Bradley,” said Donnelly.

“Aaron is our strength and conditioning coach, and the lads are in great nick. We've tried to be sensible with load, we've tried to sometimes work smart and work hard. Sometimes harder doesn't always mean smarter at times, so we're just trying to trust the sports science and make sure the lads can get on the pitch as much as they can.

“At the same time, we want to make sure that they're robust and they're resilient and they're willing to work hard. got a great bunch of lads there at the minute, good culture, and we're very happy with the path that they're on.”

Saturday (April 19) at 4pm

Ulster Senior Championship Quarter-final

In Brewster Park Enniskillen: Fermanagh v Down.

Referee: J Henry.