Story of the Season
THERE’S bound to be some part of the core of Down people that will be glad 2019 has been and gone. Nothing to do with the current team, but rather the sepia-toned nostalgia of a second jubilee anniversary in three years.
All these things tend to do now is to remind you of your place in the current world. Down won’t be winning any All-Irelands any time soon, but in that they’re absolutely no different from 90 per cent of you rappers out there.
It’s nearly easier if you pretend that the 1990s never existed. It was a different world in which championship was everything. For while Down would dearly love to harvest an Ulster title, the road to getting your name on the plinth of the Anglo Celt lies in the National League.
So while the summer display against Mayo might have seemed like a step forward, it was only a temporary lifting of the fog that will sit down on Newry until at least the end of March next year.
Down needed out of Division Three this year. In some ways, they would scarcely have deserved it, but through late winners in Sligo and Westmeath, and hanging on for dear life in Carlow, they did enough through the first six games to leave their fate in their own hand ahead of a final day home tie against Louth.
That ought to have been a game they won, but some of the old failings that predated Paddy Tally were on show. And there were some new ones too, not least their absolute ineffectiveness in terms of using the boot in attack.
But to give them their dues, they learned from that. The brevity of their summer was a prevention in terms of displaying what they’d worked on in the window between league and championship, but it was a very different Down team that went to extra-time with Armagh.
Going with Connaire Harrison, Donal O’Hare and Pat Havern all in the forward line instantly gave them a fresh dimension. There was still plenty of the running game that they’d been working on, but they had a better mix with the kick.
It wasn’t enough as they lost in Páirc Esler, but in the first of three straight home championship games, they took far more good from those 90 minutes than they had from almost the whole league campaign.
Not that the league was a disaster, but they were playing a lot of third tier football against third tier teams. Their summer displays showed not just a bit more urgency, but a bit more of the tactical meat that might carry them through 2020.
Certainly their two qualifiers did them no harm whatsoever. They frustrated and outpunched a Tipperary team whose attack can be fearsome, with Darren O’Hagan keeping Michael Quinlivan on a tight leash.
And then in rolled Mayo’s bandwagon for a Saturday evening billing, with the sulphuric waft of an upset hanging over it the whole week in.
Had it not been for David Clarke’s full-length tip on to the post, the whole direction of the summer might have changed. But like all those outside the established top six, even had they beaten Mayo, it would have been the Super 8s and no more for Down.
That would have been plenty in their current guise. For while Paddy Tally has made strides and tried to shed the idea of The Down Way and bring them forward tactically, there is a lot of work to be done to bring Down to anywhere near the pitch of past glories.
Never mind about the Ulster title for now. The first for 2020 has to be getting out of Division Three, and with Derry and Cork swimming in the water now, it will be tougher than it was in 2019.
What they need
PROMOTION, for one. With Central Council having put their weight behind the idea of a tiered championship, the way of GAA politics suggests that it could very well be in place by the summer. Its format in terms of the relegated Division Two and promoted Division Three teams has yet to be nailed down, and so there’s a chance that their only way into next summer’s race for Sam Maguire will be to reach the Ulster final. And even if there is an opportunity to go the league route, there are three big fish all looking about the same thing.
What is it that they need to improve? There’s a fair bit. Their middle eight could do with a bit more brawn, particularly on the wings, where they looked quite light throughout the year.
That didn’t help in terms of ball retention from their own kickouts, which has been a long-running issue. They did do much better on it in the championship but working the ball out is something they’ll have to keep at, because they do not have the natural aerial midfielders to cope against the better sides, and then their lack of physicality makes it a struggle on the breaks.
If they’d a few boys put on a stone, there are a lot of the other ingredients. At full strength, they have an excellent full-back line in front of Rory Burns, a goalkeeper who’s proven himself a fine shot-stopper in the finest tradition of Down number ones. Marc Reid may well return to challenge him having opted out midway through this year.
Beyond that, there’s still a fair way to go tactically. They were very much a deep-lying, methodical running team in the league but they broadened their horizons for championship, and with Pat Havern, Connaire Harrison and the in-form Donal O’Hare all starting, they kept a much more offensive shape that gave them a better foothold in the opposition half.
Manager status
HOW you gauge Paddy Tally’s first year depends on what angle you view it from. They got a bit of a defensive structure together during the league and then made improvements in terms of their attacking play during the summer, which all said wasn’t a bad tactical return. With Benny Coulter and Gavin McGilly alongside, they will go at it again next year with promotion in the league the first priority.
Mr Consistency
WHILE others may assume more of the spotlight, there has been no better player in black and red in the latter part of this decade than Darren O’Hagan. Ideally, the Clonduff man would be Down’s go-to man-marker and he often still is, but there were occasions this year when they played him at wing-back simply for the drive, energy and fearlessness that he offers to their attacking game too. He almost carried them to promotion on his own against Louth on the final day, and then switched into corner-back mode to blot out Rory Grugan in the first round of Ulster, backing that up with great displays against Michael Quinlivan and Jason Doherty. He could walk into team in Ireland.
End of the Line
AS the curtain comes down the decade, there are three remaining links to the team that began the 2010s by reaching the All-Ireland final. Kevin McKernan and Conor Maginn started the decider against Cork that year, while Benny McArdle came off the bench. The latter has been hamstrung by injury in recent seasons but remains a valuable asset to Down when they can keep him fit. Maginn found himself in and out of the side all year, his own style not really deemed to fit with the new running game, but his quality forced him back into Paddy Tally’s thinking. His decision will, you imagine, come down to how much game time he envisages getting. Kevin McKernan is operating well and will continue barring a big surprise.
The new breed
DOWN are not unique in this, but they do fall into the stable of not being helped by the constant annual turnover of players. They had a handful of starting championship players come out from the shadows this year, with the likes of Conor Poland, Conor Francis - who has headed for Australia and won't be available in 2020 - and Daniel Guinness earning the repeated trust of their manager. On top of that, Guinness’ brother James and fledgling Owen McCabe made an impact, while Corey Quinn showed a valuable nose for a score in appearances off the bench that will surely morph into more next year. In U20 forwards Liam Kerr and Conor McCrickard, they have a duo who could well come into the reckoning, while Conor Clarke has also caught the eye coming up through the grades and is likely to be brought in. While the Mournement haven’t produced winning underage teams of late, they’re still getting a few through each year, but there’s work to be done on them all from a conditioning standpoint.
Number
7 – DOWN began the decade by reaching the All-Ireland final through the back door, but across the years that followed, they won just seven games in the Ulster Championship. They reached finals in 2012 and 2017, but are still waiting to end their wait for a provincial title that goes back to 1994.
