By Niall Gartland

DOWN ladies have built up a head of steam as they bid to reach the All-Ireland Intermediate final for the first time since winning the competition outright in 2014.

The Mourne girls endured an indifferent start to the season, losing their opening two league games, but since then they have embarked on a memorable run of 10 successive victories across league and championship.

They aren’t afraid of the big day either – they won last year’s All-Ireland Junior Championship title to call a halt to their briefest possible stay in the lowest tier and came out on top of this season’s Ulster Intermediate competition, so Tyrone have been well-warned ahead of Sunday’s semi-final showdown at Clones.

The Down ladies are managed by Peter Lynch and Caoibhe Sloan, who recently returned for a second stint in charge after stepping aside in 2021. They’ve been in good form for sure, but Lynch is mindful that they’re set to lock swords with a team that will play Division One football in 2025.

He said: “Tyrone are further down the road than us in the sense that they will ply their trade in Division One next year, a two full divisions ahead of us.

“Our ambition this year was to be competitive, and now we’re at this stage we’re probably in bonus territory. Tyrone were regarded as one of the front-runners for the All-Ireland title from the outset, so it’ll be very difficult but we’ll certainly give it our best.”

While Down suffered relegation to the Junior ranks at the tail-end of 2022, they’ve essentially been an Intermediate team for the last decade. A host of stalwarts left the set-up in the wake of their 2014 All-Ireland Intermediate title win, but they’ve generally been performing at a good level in recent times.

Lynch said: “An awful lot of that All-Ireland winning team left after they went to Senior level, which is understandable given a lot of the girls had put travel plans on hold and so on.

“It was only going to end one way but to their credit they’ve been consistently an Intermediate team. 2022 was a bit of an anomaly, they were unlucky to be relegated, the LFGA didn’t really give them a chance to maintain their status as Kildare and Leitrim were exempted from relegation due to winning their provincial titles. They felt a bit hard done by but the girls were determined to get back to Intermediate level and they showed that by winning last year’s Junior title.”

Down didn’t have the most promising start to the season with back-to-back defeats in Division Three but to say they’ve responded positively would be an understatement.

“We didn’t perform at all in our first two games but we’ve been on a good run since that. We feel like we’ve been gradually improving, our first couple of wins were stuttery enough but we’ve found our feet and have been playing well, and there’s a good vibe in the camp.”