EOGHAN Sands has known nothing only Division 2B hurling with Down. At Davitt Park, Belfast on Saturday the Portaferry man hopes to climb a precious rung on the NHL ladder and pip eternal rivals Derry to promotion in the League final.
In 2012, the Down hurlers surrendered their 2A status by losing a relegation play-off to Wicklow in Trim, Co Meath – and they’ve been condemned to the lower ranks ever since.
They finished Division 2B runners-up in 2014, 2016 and 2018, the latter coming in a promotion play-off defeat to Mayo. Sands is often regaled about the halcyon days when the Down hurlers in the 1990’s and 2000’s managed to win Ulster titles and frequently dined at the top table of the National League.
And Sands doesn’t have to travel far to hear of better days given that his father Noel was one of county’s leading lights on the Ards peninsula back then.
“My goal would to be playing Division One hurling,” said Sands.
“I’d love to be playing against the likes of Wexford, Kilkenny and Cork. You look at Carlow and Westmeath; they were the teams that Down were playing whenever the Christy Ring began, so why couldn’t we play at that level?
“You look at Westmeath, they held their own against Cork, Laois and Carlow have as well. We can reach that standard, we just have to build to get there. We need to get out of this division that we’re in.
“In Division 2A you’re only one step away from Division 1B. When you get to that stage, that dream, that vision then becomes a reality. But it’s one step at a time.”
Carlow, Laois and Westmeath have managed to break hurling’s glass ceiling in recent years and competed against more illustrious counties, with Laois’ Championship victory over Dublin last summer an undoubted high point which gave the clutch of minnows hope.
Sands said: “Carlow have four senior hurling teams - I know we only have three here [on the peninsula] - but you see from our team-sheet the amount of non-Ards players in the squad. There has been a good development squad process put in place to bring those guys through.
“Our management are Down people and they want to see Down to the fore again. Obviously getting promotion out of 2B would put us in with the likes of Offaly and either Antrim or Kerry.
“We actually played Offaly at the start of the year and they only beat us by three points. With both Christy Ring finalists getting promoted this year to the Joe McDonagh, you’d be playing against a better standard of hurler there too.”
Derry took Down’s scalp in the opening round of the Division 2B on January 27, with Richie Mullan’s goal and Cormac O’Doherty 13 points helping John McEvoy’s men to a three-point victory at Celtic Park.
However, the Ardsmen recovered well by stringing together consecutive wins over Roscommon, Warwickshire, London and Kildare to seal their final place against the Oak Leafers this Saturday.
Despite trailing by two points in the closing stages of their must-win clash with Kildare in Laitroim at the beginning of this month, Conor Woods and Oisin MacManus fired over two points apiece to defeat the Lilywhites.
The Leinster men looked like edging past Derry the following week at Celtic Park, but a late equalising point from Conor Kelly was enough to make it an all-Ulster League decider.
“That’s the way the League has been over the last couple of years. If you lose one game, then you’re chasing your tail and you don’t want to be depending on other people’s results. The Derry defeat did put us on the back foot but we racked up big scores against Roscommon, Warwickshire and London, and we knew we had to beat Kildare,” said Sands, who has moved back home after a spell working in Carrick-on-Shannon.
His younger brother Daithi (working in New York) and Paul Sheehan (cruciate) are missing from the Down ranks this year but the return of experienced duo Conor Woods and Danny Toner in 2020 have been a major boost to Ronan Sheehan’s squad, while Eoghan’s League form has been hugely encouraging.
Phelim Savage, Ronan Costello and Chris Egan are also punching their weight in the red and black this term while Liatroim’s Oisin MacManus has “hardly put a foot wrong” from placed balls this year.
Down haven’t had much luck in their clashes with Derry in recent seasons, but it was the Oak Leafers who were left cursing their own misfortune a year ago when they lost a promotion play-off to Wicklow in Inniskeen.
“Derry are always a hard team to play against, a hard team to beat,” added Sands.
“I think they’ve beaten us on the last three or four occasions, but it’s always been tight. I’d know some of their players having gone to university with them and coming up through underage – the likes of Brendan Rogers, Cormac O’Doherty, Brian Og McGilligan."
