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Alan Molloy's return is a big boost, as he was definitely our best player last summer. He may revert to corner back, but, if we use Coulter and Hughes as a two-man full forward line, he could also be used as an extra man at the back.

Can anyone shed some light on the recovery period for our other missing faces, including Martin Cole, Ambrose Rogers, Michael Walsh and Liam Doyle ? I'm assuming that Eoin McCartan, who has been incredibly unlucky with injuries, is a long-term casualty.

I'd glad that this thread has taken on a more realistic tone about the north Down clubs, but I still think that some people are missing the point. We have 48 clubs in Down, including the Ards hurling trio and Ballela, and as far as I'm concerned they all do an excellent job. However, roughly 50 per cent of the population of our county is covered by 45 of those clubs. The remaining three, Bredagh, Carryduff and St Paul's, must cater for the other 50 per cent.

While we are obviously talking about an area which is mainly unionist, there is still a very significant and often untapped GAA community there. Every club in Down faces its own particular challenges, but getting young players to turn up on a regular basis in districts where there is not a strong GAA tradition is particularly difficult on a number of levels.

Carryduff have done very well to survive in division two, while both Bredagh and St Paul's were promoted to division three for the coming season. All three have fine under-age set-ups, and they need to be encouraged if our various county teams are to progress. I don't see the balance of hurling and football power in Down shifting to the north, but I think that any potential for growth in our county needs to be fully explored.

It's a real pity that a handful of people in our county regard Bredagh as a threat rather than an asset. Wobbller (bring back the real Wobbler) claims that Bredagh have no `proper underage silverware.' This is simply wrong. Bredagh are the reigning u14 and u16 B hurling champions, meaning that, apart from the three established Ards teams, they are the best in Down at both levels. Kilcoo are our best underage football club over recent years, but Bredagh consistently run them close in East Down.  Measuring both football and hurling at underage level, it seems fairly clear that Bredagh have managed to set a very high standard for a club with little tradition and no pitch. Good luck to them.

LUFC websites are strongly suggesting that the team was leaked by Shaun Derry, a former Palace player who has been out injured, although there are other claims that the whole affair has been blown out of all proportion. When the dust settles, we will still need at least five wins, plus a couple of draws, from our final 15 games to stay up. I think that, on current form, we can just about do it, but it will be very tight.

Leeds could do worse than playing the new keeper up front, as the regular strikers have been letting us down. The big problem has been Healy, who has only managed four from play, plus three penalties, all season. He has started the vast majority of games for Leeds, against some very ordinary opposition, but does not look particularly interested. In an NI shirt, taking on some big name defenders, he scores almost every game. When he got his celebrated hattrick against Spain last year, Gerry Armstrong said he was worth £20m. Most  Leeds fans would have gladly accepted £2m, and spent it on a decent replacement, but there were no offers at all during the transfer window. Now he is injured anyway, at a crucial period for Leeds. We still have a chance of staying up, because there are so many poor teams just ahead of us, but it is going to be a tough run-in.

Quite right Cloc Mor. Don't let this board descend into text-speak, even if that is the format some people in Armagh may prefer. However, let's focus on the main issue, which is obviously whether Down for the first time in a decade can field a defence of inter-county standard. I'm not at all sure if we will see many positive signs in Drogheda, but Ross is quite right to experiment and, as ever, we will travel in hope.

I'm not doing PR for TG4, but this week's Laochra Gael (Tuesday, Jan 30,9.30pm) is on Mickey Linden. My only concern is that 30 minutes is hardly long enough for a career which began in Down's division four and reached a period as, beyond dispute, the best player in Ireland. Everyone has their favourite Mickey moment, but mine is the run and long-range point which turned the 1991 All Ireland semi final against Kerry. That was a landmark moment for Ulster football, after more than two decades of failure, and seven Sams came north in the next 16 years. I could probably name another 20 or 30 Linden scores of equal quality, and I hope that the programme comes somewhere close to doing him justice.

I didn't know that Corvan was a hurler, but he was definitely an outstanding footballer. I first came across him in an Loch an Iuir final in the early 70s, and he was the difference between his side winning and losing. He was unlucky to play for Armagh at a time when they had a decent team which seemed to specialise in losing Ulster and National League finals. He also played Irish League soccer for Newry Town, and I think he ended up in Australia.

Take Your Points is quite right to mention that Armagh always had a much bigger rivalry with Down than Tyrone until comparatively recently. It's about time that Down started to revive it, but we have a bit of work to do. I believe that Armagh have played 19 senior championship games at Croke Park over the last eight years, while Down's total is zero. Although a Down/Armagh Ulster final this summer is not out of the question, Ross will probably be thinking of 2008 rather than 2007.

In fairness to Tony - a phrase seldom seen on this board - most Down supporters would accept that we were lucky to get a second chance in the Ulster minor final of 1977. We were three points down at half-time in the replay and eventually won by three (0-11 to 1-6), so it was reasonably conclusive in the end. However, Tony is as amusing as ever when he talks about an `over-rated' Down side. Down won the North-East and Ulster minor leagues that year, as well as the overall Ulster and All Ireland titles. Apart from the Armagh games, no one got within seven points of us in the championship. Practically the same team won the All Ireland u21 two years later, and by my reckoning 12 members of the squad went on to play senior football for Down. As for Tony's disenguous dig about Pat Donnan, a player with all Ireland winners medals at three different levels, everyone knows the ball was nowhere near the line in the 1986 Ulster final. The only person who disagreed was one Michael Greenan - I rest my case.

If anyone is interested, the Leeds v Spurs game from 2000, which finished 4-3 for us, is on ESPN (Sky channel 442) at 11pm tonight. At that stage, we had a young Irish manager, we were regularly fielding four Irish players - Gary Kelly, Ian Harte, Stephen McPhail and Alan Maybury - with Robbie Keane joining shortly and we were about to go on a charge through the Champions League. It doesn't really seem that long ago.

As a bit of advance warning, the TG4 All Ireland Gold offering this coming Wednesday night(January 31, 11.35pm) is Dublin v Armagh. According to the Sky schedule, it is from 1997. I suspect they are 20 years out and I am absolutely certain that the best Ulster team on view that day was Down minors - Pat Donnan, Paddy O'Rourke, John McCartan, ET McGivern coming off the bench and all the rest. Unfortunately, the tv coverage will probably concentrate on all those goals hitting the Armagh net.

Seth Johston's agent has basically confirmed that story, but his version is that he told Johnston to say nothing during the negotiations with Ridsdale, leave the talking to him and they might end up with £15k a week if they were lucky. Ridsdale's first offer was £30k, Johnston said nothing as ordered, and the agent was speechless. Ridsdale took this as a refusal and upped the offer to £38k. They both found their voices and signed immediately.

Leeds also apparently made a £12m profit from the Champions League in 2001, so Ridsdale, believing that bigger sums would roll in every year, spent the lot on giving Gary Kelly, then the reserve right back, a six year contract at £46k per week. It does not expire until this summer, and yet you will still hear people say that Kelly deserves credit for sticking with Leeds.

Ridsdale must be the most disastrous chairman in the history of English football.

There are still plenty of Leeds fans about, but we tend to keep a low profile these days. The great frustration is that the team which reached the semi final of the 2001 Champions League was put together within a reasonable budget. Robbie Keane was there on loan, but was cuptied in Europe, and Ridsdale then paid well over the odds to buy him for £12m. He then bought Fowler, who was past his best and yet another striker, for a further £12m and threw in Seth Johnston for another overpriced £6m. This meant £30m in transfers and another £30m in wages, which effectively left the club bankrupt. It's difficult to get excited about the journeymen at Elland Road these days, and relegation to the old third division is a growing prospect. But, if we hang on, and the younger players start to come through again, the size of the fan base means a revival is never out of the question. 

Louth have reportedly been in intensive training over the winter and fielded their strongest available side during their O'Byrne Cup campaign. Their performances in January have been solid, they won division two in the league last year and they outplayed Tyrone in the championship. They are clearly a team on an upward curve, and, with home advantage, they will be expecting to start their 2007 league programme with a win.

Down were a shambles last summer, and have quite rightly used the McKenna Cup to experiment with fringe players. Only a handful of them will be retained, and we will mainly be relying on the familiar faces who have just started back to full training plus a few promising youngsters. We don't want to get relegated, but all the indications are that it will take a few matches before the squad really takes shape.

Down are always capable of surprising us, usually for the worst reasons, but Louth are very much the form side. If they are available at anything better than even money, they are an excellent bet.

Down started the league last year with some promising displays, but gradually lost their confidence and hit rock bottom in the last game against Galway in Newcastle. This set the scene for the embarrassments to follow in the championship.

I hope we do things the other way round in 2007, and we need to take some time to completely re-build our defence, so I am not too pushed about the result against Louth.  Mind you, I still wouldn't mind a win...

To the best of my knowledge, Ambrose took and missed every 45 we were awarded in both the league and the championship - except the very last one in the closing stage of the Sligo disaster. When we were already a well beaten team, Aidan Carr was given his chance and put it straight over the black spot. The 45s were unfortunately another indictment of Paddy's approach. He decided that Ambrose was our long distance free taker and stuck with him even when it was obvious that his confidence had (hopefully temporarily) gone. One of the 45s which was missed from a fairly central position against Donegal would have given us a draw which we would not have deserved. The message for Ross, who knew a thing or two about freess, is that you have to have options. His son is a decent place kicker, but we need at least two others in our squad.