THE last time Down were in an Ulster final Caolan Mooney was sitting with Marty Clarke in Australia watching their native county being outclassed by eventual All-Ireland champions Donegal.
Mooney admits that it will feel “surreal” playing in this year’s provincial showpiece against Tyrone on July 16.
The Mournemen have not won an Ulster title since 1994 and were runners-up four times since then – in 1996, 1999, 2003 and 2012.
Tyrone were their conquerors in ’96 and 2003 (after a replay).
“Obviously Down is a proud footballing county and it’s been a long time since we won an Ulster title,” said Mooney, who has been an inspirational figure in Down’s two provincial wins over Armagh and Monaghan.
“Now, we’ve got a 50-50 chance against Tyrone but no doubt we’ll go into the final as underdogs again after Tyrone’s performance against Donegal the week before.
“We’ll just enjoy these weeks. The last time Down were in an Ulster final Marty Clarke and me were watching it in Australia. So it’s a bit surreal to be in one now.”
To overcome the Red Hands, Mooney says, Down will have to make significant improvements in their shooting accuracy.
“We just played to our strengths against Monaghan. We ran at them. We watched highlights of them and they were iffy when people ran at them.
“But our final product – myself included, I missed three chances that I would normally score – is something we have to keep working at in training because if you don’t get your scores against Tyrone they will punish you at the other end.
“It wasn’t the perfect game against Monaghan as there were still a lot of mistakes – but we’re in an Ulster final.”
Like many of his team-mates, Mooney was stung by the barrage of criticism the Down team received ever since Eamonn Burns assumed the reins at the start of last season.
They dropped like a stone out of Division One in 2016 and were gone from the Championship after back-to-back defeats to Monaghan and Longford.
This year, however, there were green shoots of recovery at the back end of their Division Two campaign before they ambushed neighbours Armagh in their Championship opener on June 4.
“We’d a lot to prove,” said Mooney.
“We had a lot of fire in our bellies over the last couple of years – all the negative comments about us – so you just want to go out and prove to people that we are good footballers and we can compete with the best, and we did that against Monaghan.
“We can control what we can control. We can’t control what people write about us. People write whatever they want about us but we just have to do our talking on the pitch. There’s no point talking in the paper that you’re going to do something.
“We have belief and we are top quality footballers. As a team, we’ve got a bond, you can feel there’s a real togetherness and we just go out and play. We’d do anything for each other.”
