​Trip to Derry first up for Down who have high hopes this season

Down’s competitive season gets underway on Saturday with a trip to Owenbeg to take on the current Ulster Champions and last year’s McKenna Cup winners Derry in their first game of the pre-season competition.

While Derry had a terrific 2023 - All-Ireland semi-finalists their manager Ciaran Meenagh will be back in Owenbeg, but this year in Down colours since stepping back from Derry and coming on board for Conor Laverty as part of the Down manager’s backroom team.

“He's won back-to-back Ulster titles with Derry, so I suppose he brings that bit of experience to the panel,” Down captain Pierce Laverty told the Newry Reporter at the launch of the competition before Christmas.

“It's always good to have an outside view sometimes, so we'll see what he brings to the table for us this year.”

While last year didn’t pan out as planned for Down with promotion to Division 2 of the Allianz Football League just out of reach and further disappointment after defeat to Meath in the Tailteann Cup final at Croke Park in July, there was plenty to be positive about in terms of the direction Down are heading under Laverty’s leadership.

“There's so much we can take away from last year. We were obviously disappointed not to get promoted and not to win the Tailteann Cup, but those two games in the league where we fell short and that Tailteann Cup final, there's so much we can take out of it to apply into this year and so much learning you can take out of it, so the mood is good in the camp.” said the captain.

For some, the McKenna Cup has traditionally held little value in terms of indicating where a county is at, with key players often not participating, but the new calendar format changes that, and furthermore, Laverty argues for the importance of pre-season football.

“I think it's great to have competitive games ahead of the league, so I suppose if you can get as far as the final you can have some great competitive games two weeks ahead of your first league game. Nothing beats football for preparing,” he said.

“And every team wants to bleed in a few new players – younger players and maybe boys back from injury and that - but I suppose it’s also that you still want to be winning matches. If you can win every McKenna Cup game, happy days, you're in a good place for going into the National League. Maybe a lot of boys have been out of club football for six, seven, eight weeks, or maybe even longer. I know myself I've been out longer than that, so it's good to get them back on the field and playing competitive football and that's what you want.”

And Laverty is injury-free and hopes to participate in the competition.

“You have to still earn your spot,” he said.

"You're not going to just roll into the first 15 again, you have to earn your jersey and then hang onto it and I suppose that's the message for everybody. If you get a jersey, hang onto it and see how long you can keep it. If you can keep it till the end of the year you're going well.”

Ahead of the 2024 season, boss Conor Laverty has stepped back from managing the Down U20s, with his full focus now on the Senior set-up, but Pierce Laverty feels that the Kilcoo man will remain busy.

“He'll probably be overseeing the U20s in some capacity in the background anyway. He takes some of the younger ones in occasionally anyway whenever we need to make up the numbers and get them a bit of experience, but he'll be full time and have his hands full with us – and the sheep!”