By Michael McMullan

WHAT a difference a week can make. Ask Down. Ask Conor Laverty. From the highs of beating Donegal to Sunday’s chastening defeat at the hands of Armagh.

“We are gutted now,’ he said, facing up the media despite their 3-33 to 0-14 defeat. “Listen, it’s hard to put your finger on that. Armagh were the supreme team today. They overrun us in every facet of the game.

Points from Daniel Guinness, Odhrán Murdock and Shane Annett helped Down into a 0-5 to 0-2 lead.

A Tomás McCormack goal shot Armagh into action and they controlled the tempo on the way to a 2-12 to 0-7 interval lead, with Conor Turbitt also hitting the net.

“That (McCormack’s goal) was a pretty big turning point in the game because I felt that, if the break of the ball had have gone our way, we were on the attacking side of it. It fell to them and they ended up getting the goal then,” Laverty said.

Armagh came into the game without the injured Ross McQuillan and named Blaine Hughes in goals, ahead of Ethan Rafferty.

Down had the euphoria of winning in Letterkenny last week before coming to back to earth before building themselves up for a trip to Clones.

“We prepared very well and we felt they were fresh coming in,” Laverty said. “We looked after the lads really well all week. It’s just whenever Armagh got their tails up, they were a machine there today.”

With Westmeath’s extra-time win over Kildare, Down’s defeat pulled them back into the Tailteann Cup.

They’ll welcome Down native Steven Poacher’s Leitrim side to Páirc Esler. That’s task now is to left the troops ahead of the game.

“We all knew that’s the rules so there’s no point complaining about that,” Laverty added.

“That’s just where it is. We probably felt we had done our part in Division Three to win it and it was still in our own hands coming into today.

“It’s not where we wanted to be, it’s not where the group wanted to be, but we’ll have to dust ourselves down now and reassess things.”