‘We are over the moon’ – Conor Lavery hails young Down squad after Tailteann Cup final victory over Laois

He acknowledged the Tailteann Cup wasn’t the objective at the start of the season. Nonetheless, winning the secondary championship guarantees Down a place in the Sam Maguire championship in 2025.

“It is good that Down teams are able to win in Croke Park again. I can’t say it was the objective at the start of the year because we had real ambitions of getting to an Ulster final and competing in the Sam Maguire this year.

“After the Armagh game we refocussed together, took a few weeks off and we decided that we were going to give this competition everything we had.”

He said they would have been looking over their shoulder next season if they were not sure of their make in the Sam Maguire series.

“We would be waiting for provincial draws and seeing how they worked and seeing if you are going to be in Sam Maguire football. So, we are over the moon. It is a very young squad. These lads have never won any silverware at senior level so that was very important,” he said.

Down had lost 12 finals – including two under Laverty’s watch – since their All-Ireland win in 1994. He accepted this was an unwanted burden.

“When you have a record of losing in finals, regardless of what a manager says or what the players are saying amongst themselves there still are external pressures on that,” he said.

“History is a big pressure particularly when you are on that losing train. It is very hard to get off that train, it probably gathers momentum and creates its own pressure.

“I don’t think it was the prettiest performance and it definitely wasn’t our best performance of the year,” he said.

Having lost in the 2023 Tailteann final to Meath and to Westmeath in the Division 3 league decider this season, Down needed to get ‘the monkey off our backs’ said Laverty.

“I would have taken any kind of win. I told the boys that during the week,” said Lavery.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be an open game particularly after the scoreline last year (Down beat Laois 8-16; 2-12 in the 2023 semi-final). We knew Laois would come and defend with 15 behind the ball but I am just very proud of the lads.”

Laverty held Danny Magill and Caolan Mooney is reserve until the second half and they both made a vital contribution scoring 0-3 between them while Magill provided an assist for another of Down’s six second half points.

“It was a massive decision,” he acknowledged.

“At a certain level games are not won in the first half any more. They are won coming down the home straight in the last 15 min or 20 minutes. It was important that we had key impacts coming in at that stage.”

He admitted he would love to be managing Down in an All-Ireland semi-final but insisted the squad are making progress.

As Kerry and Armagh warmed ahead of their semi-final meeting Lavery admitted he was jealous.

“I am not going to sit here and say what I wouldn’t give to be one of the two teams out on the pitch now. But where Down football is at is where we deserve to be. We are not arrogant to look ahead of ourselves or anything,” he said.

“We knew we were in this competition, and we had to put our best foot forward and make sure we went and won it after the ghosts of last year.

“Down football is moving in the right direction from underage to schools, to senior level we are moving well. Our minors had good success our Under-20s had success. We are on the upward curve.

“We are definitely moving in the right direction. It was really good to see some of those younger boys grab hold of the game when it was in the melting pot.”

Laois manager Justin McNulty said he was proud of his team.

“Even even though we were not firing all over the pitch we still we got into a position where we could maybe have stolen it at the end very much against the run of play because Down was probably dominant for periods in terms of their ability to score freely,” he said.

“Still, we’re hugely disappointed that we didn’t get those big scores. It was there for us, but we didn’t nail them,” said McNulty.