DOWN captain niamh Mallon missed last year's Ulster Senior Championship semi-final as she was recovering from a cruciate injury.
But now she's back and aiming to help her side make amends against Antrim (tomorrow, Portglenone, 2.30pm) with a final place at home in newry on June 1 up for grabs.
The sides clashed at the same stage last year with the Mourne girls coming out on top to set up an Ulster decider against reigning champions Derry.
"Last year against Derry was a bit of an embarrassment in the Ulster final on a horrible day,'' said Mallon.
"Hopefully we could get to the final but we'll not be looking past Antrim at this stage, that will be a tough game.
"If we don't win this weekend then we would have about six weeks until our next Championship match so we want to get as many quality games as possible."
Down were beaten by Cork in the national League Division Two final, but Mallon insists that her side will bounce back.
"we never set our sights out to the win the league, it was more used just to try players out and for management to get to know the team,'' she added.
"when we got on a run we wanted to win it but it wasn't to be and we've straight on now to put the focus on Antrim.
"we hopefully bounce back quite quickly and it won't be easy.
"we've been going well this year but only beat Antrim by a point in the league and it's never an easy game against Antrim.
"The game was close the whole way through as it is every time you face Antrim."
Antrim captain Emma McMullan echoed Mallon's belief that the game would be a close encounter.
"It will be a tough game, we played Down in the league and it was a close game so we are expecting the same in the semi-final,'' she said
McMullan added that her side were keen to build on their national League performances which saw them claim wins over Kilkenny and wexford.
"we had a good League campaign and we were unfortunate to have lost out in some games like Laois but we have learned a lot from it and players gained experience."