By Kieran Lynch

THE Down hurlers are gearing up for a second year in Division 2A and will be hoping to take the lessons that they learned in 2021 into this campaign. Last year was fruitful for Ronan Sheehan’s men and a tightly contested 3-20 to 3-18 win over Carlow was one of several impressive wins. They will hoping to repeat that result this weekend when they open their National League campaign against the same opposition.

“It’ll be a great challenge again,” said Sheehan. “The reality is that last year we got a great result. Carlow were in Division One and the Liam McCarthy Cup only two or three years ago, so they’re very experienced and a very good team.

“They have guys like Marty Kavanagh and Chris Nolan who have been All-Star nominees, and indeed in Nolan’s case, he has been an All-Star before, so those are the kinds of guys you want to be testing yourselves against, and the boys are looking forward to that.

“Division 2A is stacked full of quality teams, and there appears to be genuine parity between the six sides, with little to split them on paper. It is for this reason why Sheehan feels that it’s imperative to get off to a good start and leave any fears of relegation behind early on.

“Every single game in 2A is a real battle, and it’s very tight between all of the teams.

“It’s massive to start well. Realistically you want to be getting a couple of victories in the league as quickly as you can; we’re targeting picking up four points in our first three matches – that’s our intent. If two of those points come from the Carlow game then brilliant, if not we’ll focus on the two games after that.

“We see ourselves as a McDonagh team, we see ourselves as a Division 2A team, but that’s a hard standard to maintain. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we’re confident that we’ve done in enough in preseason, but we’ll have to see the proof in the pudding over the coming weeks, I suppose.”

Down come into the league in good form, having claimed the Conor McGurk Cup, when they defeated Donegal 1-22 to 2-18 in the decider. In their preseason, bar a dislocated shoulder injury which will keep Ruairi McCrickard out for the league, Sheehan feels that preparations have gone very well, and that his team are ready to start into competitive games.

“The boys are raring to go. They can’t wait to get started. There’s nothing like competitive matches to tell you where you stand, and ultimately, everybody trains to play matches. Nobody enjoys the hard slog that’s required in the six-to-eight weeks before you get out playing competitive matches. Lads want to play games, not be standing about listening to me at training,” they want to be testing themselves.”