Taggart: Down not getting carried away

DOWN won’t be getting carried away in promotion talk just yet and defender Caolan Taggart is just taking the league week-by-week and knows anything can change at any given time.

Ronan Sheehan’s Mourne men have made an impressive start to their Division Two campaign and picked up three victories on the trot, seeing off Kildare, Derry and Kildare in the opening three rounds.

They are on the road this weekend and they take on a familiar opponent in Meath, who have also made an excellent start. They’ve played one less game but wins over Ulster duo Donegal and Tyrone see the Royal County sit just behind Down in second place.

Heading south to Trim on Sunday afternoon is a massive test for Down, but it’s one they’re looking forward to. “We’re going well but we’ll not count our chickens before they’ve hatched,” said Taggart.

“We’re taking every game one by one at the minute. You don’t know what injuries boys are going to pick up or who’s available so we’re just dealing with what is put in front of us.”

“We’re pretty familiar with Meath at this stage, we’ve played them in the Christy Ring Cup final recently and we’ve played them in basically every league run that we’ve had in the last couple of years.

“They’re always a hard team to play, especially when it’s down there. They’re a physical team and they definitely put it up to us, so it’ll be a different test this week to what we’ve been getting the last couple of games.

“Whenever you go onto a bus for a couple of hours, I don’t know what it is that changes things but all we can do is try and make it as familiar as possible. It’ll be the same setup, same warm up, same routine in the changing rooms, that’s all you can really do.”

Down have really caught the eye in front of the posts this season and have racked up some super tallies so far. In their three league encounters to date, the men in red and black have posted an incredible 7-62.

“We’re working a lot more on tactics this year and things are just starting to click. We would have talked a while back about how we were trying new things, and I think now, everything is just starting to click.”