By Shaun Casey

THE experience of coming up against the top teams in the country will only make this Down team better, says roaming wing back Miceal Rooney ahead of their crunch showdown with Monaghan this weekend.

The Mourne men spent the last three seasons battling it out in the Tailteann Cup and they finally gained promotion to the All-Ireland series by winning the Tier Two competition last July, having lost the final in 2023.

In recent Ulster Championship contests, against the likes of Armagh and Donegal, Conor Laverty’s side have shown that they are more than capable of competing at this level and they’re eager keep on improving.

“We know what we have and we know we have good players,” said Rooney after their one-point victory over Louth which finished in dramatic fashion, with a last second block from Adam Crimmins securing Down’s win.

“We have committed players that want to dine at the top table and this team has got very, very close over the last couple of years with Lav (Conor Lavery) and the lads at the helm. We’ve got a real brotherhood in the team.

“You can see that, Adam came out of nowhere at the end to make the block and didn’t hang his teammates out to dry and I think that moment just sums us up as a team and it’s nice to get that wee bit of luck that we didn’t get in the league.”

While Down were relegated in the league and fell back down to Division Three, they finished the campaign on a high, travelling to Clones to defeat the eventual Division Two winners Monaghan, by the minimum of margins on the final day.

“You bring confidence into every game. If you’re not confident going into a game you’re in the wrong sport. We’ll see what we can improve on first and foremost and then see what Monaghan are bringing to the team,” Rooney added.

“There are areas where we can improve but against the top teams, the more games like that that we get, the better we’ll become at that.”

On the Louth clash, which went right down to the wire despite Down leading by nine-points at the end of the third quarter, Rooney continued, “It was mental, the atmosphere at the end was unbelievable.

“We made a wee mistake at the end, just basic skills and it nearly lost us the game, but Adam Crimmins came in with an amazing block.

“Adam wasn’t starting at the start of the year, but he’s worked really hard and wee moments like that are what we cling onto and for a young fella to do that on such a big stage, he’s a credit to the team.”

Letting Louth off the hook and having such a frantic finish is something that Laverty and his lads will have to address. A series of two-pointers from the Wee County were the major turning points in the game.

Sam Mulroy, Craig Lennon and Tommy Durnin all raised orange flags in quick succession as the Leinster champions chased their first win of the All-Ireland series. That two-point threat is something Monaghan carry as well.

In their round two in over Clare, Jack McCarron and substitute David Garland both scored from outside the 40m arc while Rory Beggan, Conor McCarthy and Mícheál Bannigan are all well fit to slot over two-pointers as well.

“It’s the craziness of this new game and it’s maybe our inexperience of playing against top teams,” admitted the Kilcoo clubman. “We knew what Louth were going to bring, the last couple of times we’ve played them, they’ve been close games.

“They went and won Leinster, and we were envious watching on, and we’d like to see ourselves doing that in Ulster someday, but we need to come and play more games against big teams, so we’re delighted that we got the right result.

“It was the two-pointers that got them back into it and we knew that the capable of players they have, like Sam Mulroy, Ryan Burns, (Ciaran) Downey, they were going to be able to kick big scores for them and they done that.

“It’s probably something that we’ll need to reassess going into the Monaghan game because it’s another big game and it’s an amazing opportunity and we’re just delighted to be playing at this level.

“We’ve been playing in the Tailteann Cup for the last few years, and it was hard to get out of it so we’re just looking to make hay now while the sun is shining while we’re here.”

This week’s Gaelic Lives previews the final round of group games in the All-Ireland SFC with Michael Kennedy, a Tyrone man and part of Dublin’s All-Ireland winning management team under Pat Gilroy and Jim Gavin.