Down Club Hurling & Football

[snoopdog]

Monaghan game is 2 weeks away? 14th?

[ardtole]

Monaghan game is 2 weeks away? 14th?
[/quot


On rte website all 8 games are scheduled for Sat 14, with the hurling on Sunday. I'd have thought 2 groups play their games on Sat, and other 2 groups play on Sunday. Obviously the final 2 games in each group start at the same time.

[Sheedy]

Monaghan game is 2 weeks away? 14th?
[/quot


On rte website all 8 games are scheduled for Sat 14, with the hurling on Sunday. I'd have thought 2 groups play their games on Sat, and other 2 groups play on Sunday. Obviously the final 2 games in each group start at the same time.

from gaa website, all games scheduled for 14/15th with times and venues tbc.

[downtothecore]

Big game against monaghan next. They are now div 2 champions so are now a div 1 team and have looked very impressive this year and will be hard to beat. Monaghan broke louths spirt with sheer hard work and intensity so I'd say laverys team  for a start will want to make sure the mind set is right so that we are not second best in this area and if we can match their intensity in this game we wont be far away...

Looking forward to it...

[AnDúnAbú94]

Thought yesterday was a great occasion and great crowd. Down played some great football and showed real guts at the end when Louth had all the momentum. Danny Magill's best game in a Down shirt, Murdock and Crimmins (block and more) very good too.

Monaghan in two weeks is both a massive game and a bit of a free hit. Should be a good game.

[snoopdog]

Thought yesterday was a great occasion and great crowd. Down played some great football and showed real guts at the end when Louth had all the momentum. Danny Magill's best game in a Down shirt, Murdock and Crimmins (block and more) very good too.

Monaghan in two weeks is both a massive game and a bit of a free hit. Should be a good game.

Crimmons has taken his oppurtunity in  Down shirt and really impressed. What a block and what an example for young kids playing the game, never ever give up. That block was as important as any score. One of the greatest blocks I've ever seen.
Louth we're brilliant in that 2nd half. Wind looked to have been stronger than the 1st.
Massive game v Monaghan. Hopefully another bug crowd in Armagh for that one. This Down team are really putting in a shift. We aren't all Ireland challengers but we are getting to a competitive standard and that's all anyone can ask for.

[ck]

Excellent performance on Sat night. With relegation and a few stuttering performances and missed opportunities it was hard to see where Down were going but Sat night has answered a few questions. If they can manage a win over Monaghan then that will be genuine progress as they need to take a scalp at some stage.

[ardtole]

Down's best performance this year in the league was v Monaghan in Clones. The team won't fear Monaghan one bit, and it's a free hit as someone said before.

Worst case scenario is a home game in the last 12, if a team tops the group do they get home advantage in the q/f or is it a neutral venue?  Home advantage would be a huge reward for topping the group.

[naka]

Down's best performance this year in the league was v Monaghan in Clones. The team won't fear Monaghan one bit, and it's a free hit as someone said before.

Worst case scenario is a home game in the last 12, if a team tops the group do they get home advantage in the q/f or is it a neutral venue?  Home advantage would be a huge reward for topping the group.

Qf will Be in croke park

[Truth hurts]

The players who wouldn't commit must be kicking themselves. The management team are getting the best of this group that's for sure. The players work hard and put in an honest shift. Well done everyone.

[AnDúnAbú94]

FOR those that wish to dismiss Conor Laverty's two-and-a-half years in charge of Down, it's pretty easy.
Progress?

Sure they're back where they started in Division Three next year.

Tailteann Cup winners?


Down should be winning that, they should have won it the first year and been out sooner.

All-Ireland group stage?

They got the group of life. Beat nobody.

Competitive in Ulster?

The only teams they've beaten are a shadow Donegal, Antrim and Fermanagh.

A win ratio of 70% in league and
championship, higher than any manager since Pete McGrath stepped down?

Ah sure who have they played?

If it is your wish to be dismissive of Down, there's your ammo.

But if you choose to unload that clip, you must do so in the knowledge that your credibility is flashing out of the chamber too.

When Laverty took over from James McCartan in late 2022, they were at the snake's belly stage of a proud existence.

They'd lost eight of their nine games that year and drawn the other.

McCartan had only taken on the job out of loyalty. He didn't want it or need it, but they couldn't get anyone else and he wouldn't see them stuck.
Laverty had been approached at the time but wanted Jim McGuinness to go with him. When that fell through, it was too soon for him to go it alone.
By the following autumn, he had no real choice. He was the only viable candidate.

A lot of people in Down were waiting for him to fail.
The simple fact of why that was is that he played for Kilcoo, and they were cleaning up.
It felt at times as though Down as a county saw Kilcoo's way of being as an affront to them.

'Why can't they play The Down Way and win?' they'd ask.
The Down Way had long been devoured by the sport.
Paddy Tally took on an impossible task when he became manager. He tried to modernise them with a more possession-based style of play. What few locals came to Páirc Esler in those years groaned their way through games.

Where Conor Laverty had inadvertently bought himself some grace as a new manager was that he had given a lot to Down as a player.
While others in Kilcoo didn't wish to play inter-county football, he was not one of them.
That broke one of the sticks those who wished to beat him would have liked to have had at hand.

Under Conor Laverty, Down reached a Tailteann Cup final, got back the following year to win it and are now two from two in the group stage of the All-Ireland proper.
They've just taken the new Leinster champions into Newry and beaten them in what felt every inch a home game.

When they took over, with encouragement from Marty Clarke, Laverty was desperate to see kids flood the Páirc Esler pitch after games.
The bus would sit for a week waiting on players if that's what was demanded of them.
In almost three years, they've lost one game at home inside 70 minutes.

Yet the Louth game tells us so much more about their development as a team and as individual footballers.
If you asked even reasonably-educated outsiders to characterise Down, it would probably go along these lines: Not bad. But no forwards. No midfield. No man-markers. Haven't had a goalkeeper since McVeigh retired. And they're too small.

In some ways, the 'no forwards' thing is not all that unfair.
When it comes to out-and-out scorers that tend to operate like that at club level, only really James Guinness fits the mould.
Pat Havern has undergone a transformation over the last few years akin to how Cathal McShane went from middle-eight also-ran to the country's in-form forward in 2018.
They might not have natural inside men but it does not hamper them.

It's clear that they've spent the winter working on shooting.
Daniel Guinness was not somebody you'd have said two years ago would be shooting the lights out with goals and two-pointers the way he did to help rescue them in Brewster Park.

That team with no forwards went out against Louth and built a nine-point half-time lead.
By the end, it was chopped to one, and it was Adam Crimmins' diving block at the boot of Tommy Durnin that preserved it to the whistle.
Contrary to what the naked eye tells you, Down won that game because of their attacking play in the second half.
This team with 'no forwards' took 11 shots at goal in the second half. They scored nine of them, seven from play. That is 82% success into the teeth of a strong, game-defining wind.

They are in the mould of the Derry team that won back-to-back Ulster titles and had to listen to the same things.
Ciaran Meenagh's hand in the development of both is not to be understated.
Getting Meenagh in for year two was a masterstroke. He had the Derry job if he wanted it, but he turned it away. Laverty swooped, played on Meenagh's Down connections, sold him the dream.
If you wish to see the difference in the team from the end of 2022 until now, look at the physical development of players like Danny Magill and Ceilum Doherty. They are completely different from what they were.

The team itself has undergone huge transformation since last year.
They've adapted to the rules brilliantly for a side that ran Armagh so close last year largely off the back of manipulating the old rules and killing the game.
Reliant on goals in 2023 and 2024, they've scored far fewer of them but hit much better point tallies this year.

Going back to Division Three next year is an enormous blow, there's no getting away from it.
But in their group stage performances, you are seeing the fruits of a Division Two campaign that saw them win three times. They were relegated on head-to-head with a Louth team that went on to win Leinster.

The great thing for Down is that they're pretty confident in their own skin right now.
This might not be the most naturally talented squad of players in Down's history, but they are putting pride back in the jersey through sheer hard work to make themselves the best they can be.
What they've achieved in the last three years might not look like much on paper. Thus it has been routinely dismissed.
And that makes them exceptionally dangerous to Monaghan next weekend.

Whatever way their 2025 turns out, Down supporters must realise that Conor Laverty is the nearest thing they might see to a Jim McGuinness or Kieran McGeeney-type figure in the lifespan of this generation of players.
And if you don't agree, answer this question: If he was to leave, who replaces him that would do a fraction of the job?
Down are not there yet. They might never get there.
But any chance they have lives and dies with Conor Laverty being at the helm.

[AnDúnAbú94]

FOR those that wish to dismiss Conor Laverty's two-and-a-half years in charge of Down, it's pretty easy.
Progress?

Sure they're back where they started in Division Three next year.

Tailteann Cup winners?


Down should be winning that, they should have won it the first year and been out sooner.

All-Ireland group stage?

They got the group of life. Beat nobody.

Competitive in Ulster?

The only teams they've beaten are a shadow Donegal, Antrim and Fermanagh.

A win ratio of 70% in league and
championship, higher than any manager since Pete McGrath stepped down?

Ah sure who have they played?

If it is your wish to be dismissive of Down, there's your ammo.

But if you choose to unload that clip, you must do so in the knowledge that your credibility is flashing out of the chamber too.

When Laverty took over from James McCartan in late 2022, they were at the snake's belly stage of a proud existence.

They'd lost eight of their nine games that year and drawn the other.

McCartan had only taken on the job out of loyalty. He didn't want it or need it, but they couldn't get anyone else and he wouldn't see them stuck.
Laverty had been approached at the time but wanted Jim McGuinness to go with him. When that fell through, it was too soon for him to go it alone.
By the following autumn, he had no real choice. He was the only viable candidate.

A lot of people in Down were waiting for him to fail.
The simple fact of why that was is that he played for Kilcoo, and they were cleaning up.
It felt at times as though Down as a county saw Kilcoo's way of being as an affront to them.

'Why can't they play The Down Way and win?' they'd ask.
The Down Way had long been devoured by the sport.
Paddy Tally took on an impossible task when he became manager. He tried to modernise them with a more possession-based style of play. What few locals came to Páirc Esler in those years groaned their way through games.

Where Conor Laverty had inadvertently bought himself some grace as a new manager was that he had given a lot to Down as a player.
While others in Kilcoo didn't wish to play inter-county football, he was not one of them.
That broke one of the sticks those who wished to beat him would have liked to have had at hand.

Under Conor Laverty, Down reached a Tailteann Cup final, got back the following year to win it and are now two from two in the group stage of the All-Ireland proper.
They've just taken the new Leinster champions into Newry and beaten them in what felt every inch a home game.

When they took over, with encouragement from Marty Clarke, Laverty was desperate to see kids flood the Páirc Esler pitch after games.
The bus would sit for a week waiting on players if that's what was demanded of them.
In almost three years, they've lost one game at home inside 70 minutes.

Yet the Louth game tells us so much more about their development as a team and as individual footballers.
If you asked even reasonably-educated outsiders to characterise Down, it would probably go along these lines: Not bad. But no forwards. No midfield. No man-markers. Haven't had a goalkeeper since McVeigh retired. And they're too small.

In some ways, the 'no forwards' thing is not all that unfair.
When it comes to out-and-out scorers that tend to operate like that at club level, only really James Guinness fits the mould.
Pat Havern has undergone a transformation over the last few years akin to how Cathal McShane went from middle-eight also-ran to the country's in-form forward in 2018.
They might not have natural inside men but it does not hamper them.

It's clear that they've spent the winter working on shooting.
Daniel Guinness was not somebody you'd have said two years ago would be shooting the lights out with goals and two-pointers the way he did to help rescue them in Brewster Park.

That team with no forwards went out against Louth and built a nine-point half-time lead.
By the end, it was chopped to one, and it was Adam Crimmins' diving block at the boot of Tommy Durnin that preserved it to the whistle.
Contrary to what the naked eye tells you, Down won that game because of their attacking play in the second half.
This team with 'no forwards' took 11 shots at goal in the second half. They scored nine of them, seven from play. That is 82% success into the teeth of a strong, game-defining wind.

They are in the mould of the Derry team that won back-to-back Ulster titles and had to listen to the same things.
Ciaran Meenagh's hand in the development of both is not to be understated.
Getting Meenagh in for year two was a masterstroke. He had the Derry job if he wanted it, but he turned it away. Laverty swooped, played on Meenagh's Down connections, sold him the dream.
If you wish to see the difference in the team from the end of 2022 until now, look at the physical development of players like Danny Magill and Ceilum Doherty. They are completely different from what they were.

The team itself has undergone huge transformation since last year.
They've adapted to the rules brilliantly for a side that ran Armagh so close last year largely off the back of manipulating the old rules and killing the game.
Reliant on goals in 2023 and 2024, they've scored far fewer of them but hit much better point tallies this year.

Going back to Division Three next year is an enormous blow, there's no getting away from it.
But in their group stage performances, you are seeing the fruits of a Division Two campaign that saw them win three times. They were relegated on head-to-head with a Louth team that went on to win Leinster.

The great thing for Down is that they're pretty confident in their own skin right now.
This might not be the most naturally talented squad of players in Down's history, but they are putting pride back in the jersey through sheer hard work to make themselves the best they can be.
What they've achieved in the last three years might not look like much on paper. Thus it has been routinely dismissed.
And that makes them exceptionally dangerous to Monaghan next weekend.

Whatever way their 2025 turns out, Down supporters must realise that Conor Laverty is the nearest thing they might see to a Jim McGuinness or Kieran McGeeney-type figure in the lifespan of this generation of players.
And if you don't agree, answer this question: If he was to leave, who replaces him that would do a fraction of the job?
Down are not there yet. They might never get there.
But any chance they have lives and dies with Conor Laverty being at the helm.

Good article in the Irish News on Down, hard to disagree with any of it.

[ONARAGGATIP]

Unfortunately there will be many disagree with it. Time to put the anti kilcoo thing to bed and fully get behind them. Was great to see newry buzzing again on sat evening.

[snoopdog]

Very good article. Down have made progress despite what the begrudgers think. Laverty is the only man for the job. It's great to have someone there with a passion for the game and the  county and not another outsider there for the payback.
As someone said above, those that didn't commit this year have only opened the door for the likes of Crimmons, McGeogh and others to step up to the plate.
Competition for places is great to see.

[Targetman]

Why was there so many empty seats in the stand when it was apparently sold out, looking across from the terrace the far right section was empty, it filled up when they let the crowd in at half time.