DOWN senior manager Conor Laverty has heaped praise on his team after securing a place in the Tailteann Cup final for a second year in-a-row following a dramatic back and forth spectacle at Croke Park with Sligo on Sunday.
The Mournemen eventually got over the line in exhausting fashion and will now face Laois in the decider on Saturday, July 13 at the same venue.
It took until extra-time but Down finally made it past the Yeats County by a scoreline of 1-20 to 2-15 with Odhrán Murdock’s penalty the eventual difference maker.
“I’m just delighted about the character that this young Down team showed,” echoed Laverty after the match.
“I’m really proud of this group because they are a very young group and they’ve suffered some poor defeats here.”
Those losses mentioned by Laverty refer to last year’s Tailteann Cup decider, when Down fell short against Meath, and this year’s Division 3 league final, when the Mournemen lost out to Westmeath.
But those defeats are the lessons required to grow, argued Laverty.
“People questioned this Down team, about why they weren’t able to do that but everybody knows that you can’t buy experience and you can’t buy them situations, you just have to be in them time after time,” he said.
“You probably learn more from defeats but you take something away from it every time that you come here.
“It’s really valuable learning over the past three times that we’ve been here and I think that had an effect coming down the home straight.”
During the match against Sligo there were plenty of talking points and perhaps none more so than when play was called to a halt for a six minute stretch after Down forward Oisin Savage was clattered by Sligo’s Nathan Mullen, who received a straight red card for the challenge.
This led to worrying moments as the Loughinisland clubman required immediate medical attention before ultimately being stretchered off the pitch.
“I know he was bad whenever I was out on the pitch,” said Laverty.
“It was scary stuff, even the noises that he was making. It was genuinely scary, that’s the truth.”
Savage was later revealed to have sustained a broken jaw and went to surgery yesterday to address the situation, which so happened to be the young star’s 21st birthday.
This injury rules him out of next month’s final.
However, on a more positive note, Laverty believes his men can get the job done as his panel of players have gone beyond the call of duty when required.
“Everything that we’ve asked of them to do, all the tough sessions, they are always ready to go and there’s no questions asked,” he said.
“They’ve never questioned us once as a management team.
“I said to them before we went out for extra-time that all of them moments and all the dark places that they’ve went to in training, this is where it counts and it got us over the line.”
He continued: “A lot of Tollymore sessions and sand dunes in Ballykinlar and places like that. A lot of tough nights, long, dark evenings and when you’re coming down the straight, there’s no better feeling as a player when you know that you have it in your legs.”
He added: “It gives you great confidence to know that you’ve went to the well many times in training and then you’re able to do it in the game.”