By Shaun Casey

IT’S three weeks since Down defeated Kerry and sealed their spot in Division 1B for next season, but their league campaign isn’t quite complete yet and the team are looking forward to competing in this weekend’s Division 2A league final, says goalkeeper Stephen Keith.

The Mourne men will join Kildare in the top tier in 2026, but on Saturday afternoon at Inniskeen, the pair will lock horns with both camps hoping to finish the campaign on a high and with a league title to show for their efforts.

They clashed in the opening round of the league way back at the end of January and two months on, they will renew acquaintances once again. Over the last few seasons, the two counties have got to know each other fairly well.

They have met seven times in the past five years, both in league and championship. Down have picked up three wins in those encounters, Kildare have won three as well, while they drew in the league last season.

“Both teams have been promoted which was the main thing but there’s not too many people in Down that have national titles to their name so it would be nice to get one,” said the Down shot-stopper.

“We want to win it, it’s a national title and it’s always nice to get a bit of silverware. It would help to build a bit of confidence before the Joe McDonagh Cup campaign too. I’ve played in a couple of league finals before, lost a couple and won one a few years back against Derry.”

On their relationship with Kildare, Keith added, “We know Kildare brave and well now at this stage. The past three or four years we have met fairly regularly and there’s never been much more than a point or two either way between the two teams.

“We would be two fairly evenly matched teams and I know Kildare will be thinking that if they bring their A game on Saturday that they can win and we’re thinking the same way, if we bring our A game then we’ll get over the line.

“I have no doubt there’ll be nothing between the two teams again, I just hope we finish on the right side of it. We’ve been down to Kildare and won, they’ve come to Ballycran and drew with us and beat us in the last few years.

“They beat us in the 2020 Christy Ring Cup final as well and we beat them a couple of years ago in the Joe McDonagh Cup playoff so there’s literally been nothing between the teams in the last four or five years.”

Down had a fairly impressive league campaign on their way to topping the table, winning their first five games to ensure promotion, but tasted defeat for the first time in 2025 in their last outing, a dead-rubber clash – for the Ulster side anyway – with Meath.

With a few players carrying injuries and their spot in the league final already secured, Ronan Sheehan rotated his squad for that game and while they lost their 100 per cent record, there were still positives to take from the final round of the league.

“We were a bit disappointed in the performance against Meath but we have trained hard ever since that game. Everyone is looking forward to it and everyone is raring to go,” added the Down number one, who didn’t feature in that game.

“Everyone was on a bit of a downer after the Meath game to be honest but we had a really good training session the Tuesday after and there’s a good buzz around the place again.

“There were a few boys carrying knocks and niggles after the Kerry game so they didn’t travel to Meath. We had a good second half but the first half just wasn’t up to the standard that we have set for ourselves.

“As players, we would have been disappointed with how we performed in that first half but we did improve in the second half which was a positive and we knuckled down again last week and have trained hard since.”

One of the main positives to take from that Royal visit last time out was the Down scoring rate, which has been outstanding throughout the campaign.

They didn’t hit the net against Kerry in round five, where they claimed that crucial win, but have bagged at least two three-pointers in all their other games.

“We had a couple of chances against Kerry too actually that we didn’t take but it wasn’t to be that day but we do look more dangerous now going forward,” Keith continued on Down’s scoring rate.

Against Meath, they clocked up 4-21 and have been incredibly reliable in front of the posts.

“We had a real good second half in that Meath game and a couple of boys came off the bench to score goals. Tim Prenter came on that day and played well, Michael Dorrian was the same.

“We’ve had plenty of scorers in the team this year which has probably been our Achilles’ heel the past number of seasons – we were more or less relying on one or two men but this year the scores have been spread about a bit more,” the veteran net-minder added.