SOMETHING ELSE
Even by own standards, Down have caused a stir
TO get a sense of just where Down footballers have come from this summer, Eamon Burns points out that most of his players have never played in front of a crowd of more than 16,000. There will be more than twice that in Clones on Sunday.
Just about half-a-dozen of his panel were involved in 2010, when Down last came out of nowhere to get within a point of an unlikely All-Ireland title. But, apart from the excellent Kevin McKernan (pictured), most of those experienced players have to be content with bit-part roles this summer.
For most of the Down team, Sunday is going to be something new, although Burns, who won All-Ireland titles in 1991 and 1994, says that he won’t be drawing on his own playing days in an effort to settle his players’ nerves.
‘I would very rarely, if at all, go back and talk about my own career because some of the boys I am dealing with weren’t even born when I was playing football,’ the Mourne boss explains. ‘It’s akin to the people of the 1960s talking to us when we were playing. Any snippets of advice I can give them, I do, but I rarely refer back to ’91 and ’94.
‘In the current panel, there are maybe half-a-dozen who were involved in 2010, so they can use their experience to relate to their own peers and keep lads on an even keel and properly prepared for the game. When we go to Clones, there will be a massive crowd. Up to now, we have been playing in front of 16,000. There will be twice that, at least.’
Even by Down’s own reputation from coming from nowhere, their emergence this summer has been quite something. On the long bus journey back from Ennis after their second League defeat in February, none of the players would have believed they were preparing for an Ulster final.
‘We started the League with two defeats, which wasn’t in the script. We had blooded a lot of young lads in the McKenna Cup and they did quite well. But when the League started, some of them found the pace a wee bit difficult to adapt to but we started to filter senior players back.
‘I know there’s a lot said about how the team has changed but it has evolved because people became available,’ Burns said. In the National League, they travelled to Cork and got a result that ensured they survived in Division 2, arguably the pivotal result of their season.
‘That was very encouraging. It gave us a platform to work from, it strengthened confidence and pulled them tightly together and they pushed on from then. They worked very hard in preparation for the Armagh game, they knew it was going to be a massive task but they had a massive opportunity and they took it.’
The emergence of Connaire Harrison, as a talented target man on the edge of the square, and former AFL star Caolan Mooney getting a new lease of life at wing-back underpins the perception that there are always footballers in Down and it only takes one Championship win for the swagger to return to the footballing aristocracy of the north.
As Gaelic football has become more defensive in recent years, Down have got lost in the mix but their superb win over Monaghan was a throwback to a different age with plenty of kick-passing and Harrison making a nuisance of himself at full-forward.
‘You’ve often heard it said that Down have a certain way to play and we do. I’ve made no bones about it, the defensive shield is something that’s not really in our DNA, we find it very difficult to set up,’ says Burns, who is a school teacher. ‘But we know if we’re going to make progress we have to implement it.’
Although Down are always recognized as a footballing side, there was an aggression in their performance against Monaghan that surprised many.
‘Our tactics are to play football at all times — play it as hard as you want and as long as you stay within the rules, you’ll stay on the field,’ Burns says. ‘I’ve always emphasised that, even when I was coaching at juvenile level in my own club. There are very few dark arts with us. We like to play the football that we know, but you have to be tough with it too.
‘A lot of that comes from their will to win the game but I don’t think we’ve ever overstepped the mark in that respect.’
Something seems right in the GAA world when Down are going well and they are likely to be backed by any neutrals against Tyrone this Sunday.
‘You’re probably right but at the end of the day they can’t take the field, we have to battle out our own corner against Tyrone. It’ll be a tough task. It’s great to have a lot of neutral support but we know if we’re going to be successful in the Ulster final we’re going to have to do it ourselves,’ Burns insists.