By Shaun Casey

DOWN are facing into a “very tough” group stage phase of the All-Ireland Intermediate series but boss Colm Donnelly insists his side are looking forward to the challenge. They travel to Westmeath this weekend to kickstart their campaign.

The Mourne Ladies are also joined by fellow Ulster foes Tyrone in Group Two, so making it through to the knockout stages of the competition will be a battling task for Donnelly and his girls.

Following their Ulster Intermediate final defeat to Cavan two weeks ago, Down are looking forward to getting back out onto the pitch.

“We’re looking forward to the All-Ireland series and we’re looking forward to the challenge ahead,” said Donnelly.

“It’s the toughest group across the four groups. You have Westmeath who are in Division Two and are Leinster champions and you have Tyrone who are a Division One team. Then you have us as well so each team will fancy their chances of getting out of the group.

“There’s going to be one good team that’s not going to make it out of the group and we’re up first, so we’ll see how we get on.

“We’re looking to get back playing football after the Ulster final and the Westmeath game is a good way to refocus the mind.”

On getting back into action following a disappointing Ulster final defeat, Donnelly added, “We were disappointed, Cavan are a very good team, and we knew we had to be at our best to beat them and we weren’t at our best and the better team won on the day.

“We as a group decided to go back to training on the Tuesday night, we didn’t take any time off, we just went straight at it and that’s a great reflection of the group of girls that we have here in Down.”

Ahead of their trip to Westmeath this Sunday, Donnelly, in his first season in charge of the Down team, reports that his side do have a few injury concerns, but understands that it’s the name of the game so he isn’t too concerned going forward.

“We have a couple of girls carrying niggles from the Ulster final, with the ground being so hard and that. We have a few with niggles from club games last weekend but that’s just part and parcel of football.

“It’s important that girls can play for their clubs as well as playing county football because all their friends are in their clubs and when the club games are on Wednesday or Thursday nights, everybody wants to be there to play.

“We let the girls go back to their clubs straight away after the Ulster final. It keeps them fresh and gets them playing football again and everything seems so far away now from the last game, and it’s worked quite well.”