Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE FIRES STILL BURN FOR PETE
Fireman Turley is ready to extinguish Down thanks to Watch Commander Maurice
DOWN midfielder Peter Turley says he probably wouldn’t be playing in Sunday’s Ulster final if it wasn’t for his boss, ex-ireland rugby star Maurice Field.
After making his debut 10 years ago, his career as a fireman almost extinguished his desire to keep playing inter-county football.
Work commitments forced the Downpatrick man to miss the 2010 season – and Down went on to reach the All-ireland final, losing to Cork, but it was Field (above) who encouraged him to give inter-county football another lash.
He revealed: “It was all down to Maurice, because he played rugby for Ulster and Ireland when he was in the Fire Brigade and he always found it difficult to get time off ”.
“He became my Watch Commander and he basically said if I ever get a chance to go back to the county, to make sure and take it.
“He said he would do whatever he could to get me to training and would work with me one hundred per cent.”
Stationed on the Ormeau Road in Belfast, it’s safe to say no other player lining out on Sunday will have had a prematch build-up quite ike his.
“I’m working over the Twelfth,” he says. “I was hoping for a quiet week in the build-up to the final but there’ll be a few bonfires to be put out I’d say!
“The job has its moments but the way the shift pattern is it’s hard to fit it around football.
“It can be awkward because we do two days (from 8-6pm) and two nights (from 6pm 8am) every eight days.
“I’m always looking to change shifts but the boys are all good.”
When you run into burning buildings for a living, playing in an Ulster final shouldn’t be too stressful, but Turley insists: “It’s a different kind of nerves!”
“In a way it’s the same though, because when you’re going into fire calls, you’re trying to concentrate on your job.
“You’re only thinking about what you’ve been trained to do so I suppose it’ll be a bit like that on Sunday.”
Turley, who played in the 2012 Ulster final defeat by Donegal, senses it’s a whole new ball game.
Down have come from such a low base this time, losing 14 straight in the league and championship before stopping the rot at the end of February.
Eamonn Burns’ side avoided relegation from Division Two, pulled off a first championship win over Armagh in 25 years and then stunned Monaghan in an epic Ulster semi-final.
They’ve the county believing again and Turley reveals it wasn’t just the supporters who lost faith during their bad run.
“In 2014 we played
Tyrone in Omagh and the boys who weren’t in the starting 15 had an attitude
‘what’s the point? We’re not going to beat Tyrone’.
“It was the same against
Monaghan last year.
“I knew our boys didn’t believe they could beat them. It was hard to watch.
“I don’t know what it is this year,” he continued, “but it has been completely different.”