By Niall Gartland

WHILE Down couldn’t have been any more convincing winners in their Tailteann Cup semi-final rout of Laois, Conor Laverty acknowledged that it’s unlikely to be quite so simple in their final clash against Meath in a fortnight’s time.

Down banged in eight goals in a supreme attacking performance against Billy Sheehan’s Laois, but it was only a few short weeks ago that they lost by two points in the group stages to Meath, a result that forced them into playing a preliminary round-quarter final.

So while the Mourne County are making strong progress, their manager Laverty recognises that they’re unlikely to get anything simple against Meath, who like themselves, seem to be improving with every game even if they didn’t get it all their own way against Antrim in their own semi-final.

“Meath are a very strong team. “They’ve a lot of experience and under their new management they’re playing a bit of a different system compared to earlier in the year.

“They’re going to be hard and break down and it’ll be a very physical battle.”

Down have made considerable progress in Laverty’s first year on the sideline, but he pointed out that the Tailteann Cup competition is ultimately a secondary competition. If they win the final, they’ll get a crack at the Sam Maguire next year so the prize is a considerable one.

“That’s everybody’s dream, to play at Croke Park, and hopefully some lads fulfilled it (against Laois).

“But we’re under no illusions, we want to be here on bigger days. We would swap anything to be coming here next weekend to be playing in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

“But we know where we’re at. We’re just looking forward to the final ahead.”

Down suffered a two-point defeat against Meath in the final round of the group stages, a result which saw them miss out on automatic qualification for the quarter-finals.

The Royals registered another two-point win in Sunday’s first semi-final at Headquarters as they saw off Down’s neighbours, Antrim.

“Meath are a very strong team,” said Laverty. “They’ve a lot of experience and under their new management they’re playing a bit of a different system compared to earlier in the year.

“They’re going to be hard and break down and it’ll be a very physical battle.”