Ulster game reaches fever pitch.. again

MY mind was racing as I drove away from the Canal Court in Newry last Thursday night after doing ‘Up For The Match’.

We really don’t get it down south, what Gaelic Football means to Ulster people. It’s in their very being – it’s their everything.

It was great to meet and talk to Down people who are back on the Ulster final stage, to listen to Tyrone’s most decorated defender Conor Gormley – to many, their best-ever defender – and to sit with him and the brilliant Oisin Mcconville.

As they used to say in Kerry, football is a religion. But that’s totally the case in the north, too, it flows through the veins.

It’s crucial that Down get a good start tomorrow. Logic suggests that once Tyrone don’t get complacent, they should win by five or six points.

The difference between them is that Tyrone genuinely believe they can win an All-ireland.

If Down bring that street-like tenacity, that vicious tackling and hunting in packs, and if they play on the edge as they did against Armagh but particularly against Monaghan (above), they’ll still need an extra 25 per cent.

But they must have a strategy to mark Tyrone’s key men – Sludden, Harte, Donnelly and Sean Cavanagh (right). Get the match-up rights and it’s a start, but they’ve nothing really to lose after finally lifting the gloom.

Down are the sort of side that sparks the longer they’re involved in Championship. But this could well be a step too far and will be if Tyrone maintain their level of improvement.

Nevertheless what really matters is the healthy state of the game in Ulster. Coming away from Newry I had goose pimples on the back of my neck to see what it all means to those people.

It’s worth a trip north every now and again to bring us back to what really matters.

MY TIP of the weekend is for Armagh to shock Tipperary if they can stop Tipp’s big guns.

Carlow will park the bus against Monaghan but the result will be the same as against Dublin – a 10 to 12 point defeat.