Former Down forward Mark Poland said that the county has been gifted their best chance at reaching the All-Ireland quarter-finals following last week’s draw. After winning the Tailteann Cup last year, Down automatically qualified for the All-Ireland series and were included in pot four of the draw. They were drawn in the group with the winners of the Leinster final (Meath/Louth), losers of the Munster final (Clare), and Monaghan.
Poland said, “I don’t think you could have hand-picked the draw any better to be honest. Looking at the group, it could have been a whole lot worse. That’s not disrespecting the other teams in the group. It’s just that Down will feel as if they’re capable of beating any of the teams that they’re going to be faced with in that group. They’ve already beaten Monaghan this year, though Monaghan didn’t have their eye on that game as they were already in the league final. Down ran Meath and Louth close in both league games, games that could have gone either way as well. So I definitely think it’s a favourable draw for Down and a group that I’m sure they’ll have aspirations of getting out of.”
Down failed to maintain their place in Division Two and were relegated. They somehow managed to fight back in the second half of their Ulster Championship opener against Fermanagh, and won by 2-19 to 0-23.
“Look, I think the first day out was disappointing. We showed character to come back. But I mean in terms of overall performance I’m sure they weren’t happy with that. I still maintain there was a very, very harsh black card at the end of the first half (for Pierce Laverty) which had an impact on the game. Down looked to be controlled at that stage, but Fermanagh came back. They wouldn’t have been happy with that performance.”
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