ONLY six of the 36 players who represented Down in the All-Ireland U21 finals in 2005 and '09 featured in last Sunday’s loss in Mayo.
Could any county cope with losing so much young talent? Former Down star John Clarke says more needs to be done to nurture gifted young players after U21 level. Andy Watters writes…
DOWN saved some face with a battling loss in Mayo last Sunday, but the hard facts remain that they were relegated from Division One and lost every game in the process.
It appeared the cupboard was bare in the Mourne county when manager Eamonn Burns threw several young rookies into the fray this season. But among all the gloom and doom, it’s easily forgotten that Down reached All-Ireland U21 Football Championship finals in 2005 and again in 2009.
Theoretically, all of those players should have been available to Burns this season, but only two - Aidan Carr and Mark Poland (both from the 2005 side that lost to Galway) - started in Mayo. Meanwhile, just four of the team - Damian Turley, Joe Murphy, Conor Maginn and Paul Devlin - that lost the 2009 final to Cork (1-13 to 2-9) featured as substitutes. The rest - 30 talented players - appear to have been lost to the county.
John Clarke played U21 for Down from 2001-03. In 2002, the Mourne youngsters ran into a Tyrone side that had won the All-Ireland at U21 level the previous year and went on to retain it. Players from that team formed the core of Mickey Harte’s triple Sam Maguire-winners in the noughties: “It’s a strange one,” said Clarke.
“Those two teams are probably a bit forgotten. If they had won one of those All-Irelands, there might have been more talk about the players. You had Mark Poland and Aidan Carr coming through from ’05, big Ambrose [Rogers] was on that panel too. Then, in 2009 you had Paul McComiskey and Conor Maginn and Peter Fitzpatrick.
“Again, they didn’t hang around that long at senior level and I don’t know what the reason was. Whose fault is it? Is it the structures in Down? Maybe they weren’t nurtured enough or was it the players themselves - did they not want to play for Down enough? The way Down football has been the past few years, it mightn’t have been that appealing for some of them to push on.”
Many of the players drifted away for very legitimate reasons - James Colgan is living in New Zealand for example, while Clarke’s brother Marty has been unable to commit because of health issues. Others like Timmy Hanna, the star of the 2009 side, and midfielder Mickey Magee, were given chances but didn’t take them.
“If you look at Tyrone. Their U21s won last year and the main reason why they had such a good senior Championship was bringing the U21s through,” said Clarke.
“Possibly, the lads need to be nurtured better once U21 level is finished; if they don’t make the senior team in the first year or two, they still have to be kept on the radar. You can’t let them just drift away because Down can’t afford to be losing talented players at 22/23 because they’re not getting a chance. I’m sure some of the powers-that-be in Down will think they should have got more out of that 2009 team because they were a kick of the ball away that final.”
Down have nine weeks to put their Division One nightmare behind them before they face Monaghan in the Ulster SFC quarter-final. Clarke, an All-Ireland finalist in 2010, says low expectations could help the Mourne men: “Nobody will give them a hope against Monaghan and I think that will work in their favour.
“It’s going to be a big ask, but they will take a lot of confidence from the performance against Mayo. At the same time, some of the performances in the league were pretty poor and Division One is no place for a team in transition. But Down always thrive on being the underdog and they can maybe pull off a shock in Clones. But it’s going to be a tough one.”
Some might see the eight-week gap as a potential benefit to Down and a chance for Burns to get his strongest side out on the pitch, but Clarke disagrees.
“I think it’s a bad thing,” he said.
“Yes, players are going to be going back to club football now and there’ll be plenty of games at club level, but the county boys will be training three nights-a-week and they’ll have plenty of challenge games and, for me, an eight-week gap is too much.
“It would be better to have a two or three-week gap at most, then back into the Championship and have the season finished up towards the middle of August. The GAA definitely have to look at the calendar.
“Down could play on June 5 and a Qualifier two weeks later and that could be their season over. For the amount of training they’re doing, it’s too much.”
