By Shaun Casey

DOWN will be favourites when they line out at Brewster Park, Enniskillen on Saturday to take on Fermanagh, but that won’t matter much when the ball is in the air. Mickey Donnelly and the Mourne men have been stung before.

Two years ago, when Conor Laverty first took charge of his native county, Down and Fermanagh were both chasing promotion to Division Two when they looked horns at Ederney and played out a closely fought league contest.

In the end, the home team edged the encounter by the minimum of margins and went on to book their promotion place and finish at the top of the table. Down just missed out, ending the campaign in third place, two points behind the league leaders.

“We will approach it like we approach any big game,” said Down coach Donnelly ahead of the Ulster Championship quarter-final. “We’ve had three and a half weeks to really brush down on Fermanagh, analyse their strengths.

“The first year under Conor, we went to Ederney, in a game we had to win to go up and when Fermanagh turned us over, it was a huge. It was a pivotal game, a lot of that Fermanagh team will be playing, whereas there’s been a massive turnover in our playing personnel.

“I looked at the team that played that game the other day, and I’d say we may have six or seven of those lads playing now, because Conor Poland, Niall Donnelly, Owen McCabe started that game.

“Liam Kerr too, there are a lot of players just for one reason or another who aren’t with the panel at the moment. It’s a huge game, going down to Enniskillen is not easy. We’ll give Fermanagh the ultimate respect.

“They’re well coached with Kieran Donnelly, Ronan Gallagher, Ronan O’Neill, they’re a damn good side who’ll be really, really well prepared, and we’ll just be throwing the kitchen sink at it.”

While the team has changed dramatically since their last trip to Fermanagh, Down will have a full squad to pick from this weekend.

“I think a lot of credit has to go to Aaron Bradley. Aaron is our strength and conditioning coach, and the lads are in great nick,” added Donnelly.

“We’ve tried to be sensible with load, we’ve tried to sometimes work smart and work hard.

“Sometimes harder doesn’t always mean smarter at times, so we’re just trying to trust the sports science and make sure the lads can get on the pitch as much as they can.

“At the same time, we want to make sure that they’re robust and they’re resilient and they’re willing to work hard. We’ve got a great bunch of lads there at the minute, good culture, and we’re very happy with the path that they’re on.”

Win, lose or draw this weekend, and despite relegation from Division Two on the final day of the campaign, Down will compete in the race for the Sam Maguire Cup once the All-Ireland series gets underway.

They’ll hope for a run in the provincial competition first of course, and a return to the Ulster semi-finals, but a couple of eye-catching dates with some of the biggest games in the country later on this season is something to look forward to.

Last year was an example of what they can do. Down pushed the All-Ireland champions to the pin of their collars, with Armagh getting through by a single late Jason Duffy point.

“I think probably every life experience, good or bad, you’re going to take some learnings out of it, and that applies to all aspects of life.

“Over the course of the last two and a bit years we’ve had a lot of kicks in the teeth. That Fermanagh game in Ederney, the league final last year, the Armagh game in the championship last year, those games cut very deep.

“You’ve got to take learnings out of that and say what did we not do well, you can’t always be unlucky in life,. I think it’s lazy to say we’re unlucky.

“You have to be pragmatic and you have to be resilient and big enough to stand up and say what went wrong, what didn’t go the way we wanted it.

“I suppose we’ve had a lot of those experiences over the last couple of years to draw on.I think when we’ve played the big teams we’ve done okay.

“Playing Armagh in Clones last year, we showed that we definitely learned from the year before.

“It’s going to be very exciting, because the way the draw has worked, we’ll probably be bringing one of the provincial champions to Newry which is mouth-watering. Imagine a Kerry or a Dublin coming to Newry, or a Galway or a Donegal or an Armagh or whoever it is, it’s going to be very, very exciting.”

This week’s Gaelic Lives pod looks ahead to this weekend’s Ulster SFC games. Our guests are Kieran Hughes and Shane King.