By Niall Gartland

NEEDS must and Down footballer Daniel Guinness says he is proud of the way the team regrouped after their Ulster Championship defeat to Armagh, plotting a path to Tailteann Cup honours and a place in next year’s All-Ireland SFC series.

The Mourne men lost out by only a single point to Armagh in a hotly contested Ulster Championship semi-final a few months back, and both were in action at Croke Park last Saturday, albeit in different circumstances.

Down won the curtain-raiser, a Tailteann Cup final victory over Laois, preceding Armagh’s stunning victory over Kerry in the All-Ireland SFC semi-final.

it didn’t go unmentioned that evening that they’d ran Armagh all the way in their Ulster Championship encounter, but Guinness wasn’t flippant about their own success in the second tier competition.

“That Ulster Championship match did cross our minds but you have to hand it to Armagh, they really progressed throughout the year and peaked at the right time.

“But I think it does show that the gap maybe isn’t as big as a lot of people think, and that gives us a bit more confidence going into next year – and it won’t be long coming round.”

“We couldn’t complain about being in the Tailteann Cup, it wasn’t our plan from the start of the year, but we lost last year’s final, the league final against Westmeath and the Armagh game, so we couldn’t complain – we had three chances and didn’t take any of them.

“It was a tough couple of days after the Armagh game but I think the boys regrouped well and got back down to business. It guarantees us a place in the All-Ireland next year which is great, there’s no ‘what ifs’ heading into next year’s league which is probably the biggest positive about the whole thing.”

It won’t be easy to make their mark in the All-Ireland SFC but the Carryduff man believes they’re heading in the right direction. They’ve made tangible progress this season, and the recruitment of Ciarán Meenagh and John Devine to the backroom team has played a part in that.

“We definitely feel like we’ve come on quite a bit in the last year. Having Ciarán in is huge, and then John has three All-Ireland medals, you couldn’t have a better man to be about the place. He’s been there and done that and we’ve tapped into his experience of winning big games.

“So they’ve been two brilliant additions and a lot of us boys would say we’ve the best management team in the country.

“They tick every box in preparing us for matches and at that stage it’s up to the players themselves, when we cross the white line we can’t be reliant on the management.”

It was Down’s fifth outing in Croke Park in the last 12 months between Tailteann Cup semi-finals and finals and their Division Three defeat to Westmeath. Their familiarity with the place stood them in good stead against Laois, even though it wasn’t a game for the ages.

“We’re getting familiar with Croke Park and how everything works down there,” said Guinness. “It’s a wee bit different to every other ground in the country, with the different match day routine and so on. The more experience you get in Croke Park, the more acclimatised you get.”

Down slammed eight goals past Laois in last year’s Tailteann Cup semi-final but they knew it was going to be no walkover on Sunday. The Leinster county have turned things around under Justin McNulty and proved a tough enough nut to crack, but Down were certainly deserving champions on the day.

“I’ve said it before that last year was one of those one in a million games where everything just clicks. Nothing went right for them, everything went right for us and that was never going to happen again. You’d Justin McNulty in with them, we knew they’d be well set-up and well-conditioned and they definitely put it up to us.

“It was mainly just relief to come through it, especially after losing two recent finals. It mightn’t have been the style or performance that we wanted, but we were relieved to get over the line and to put the trophy on the table.”

From a personal perspective, Guinness is delighted with how the season panned out. He’s been plagued by injury in seasons past but had a clean run at it and was a consistently solid performer for Down in 2024.

“There’s always a bit of satisfaction when you go through a whole year completely injury free, going from the start of December to mid-July without missing a single session or any games.

“It’s not the way we planned the season, but I suppose we had a good run at it and it was a good long season as well, so that will only help the group in the next few years.”