By Niall Gartland

THE curtain-raiser for this year’s Ulster Championship has been presented as a fait accompli for Donegal, but the events of the last few weeks will have given Down fans some hope that they can at the very least make of a game of it.

The Mourne county endured a horrid start to their Division Two campaign, getting tanked by Mayo before an equally disappointing defeat to Meath.

The obituary for their season was ready to be written, but they claimed a character-building one-point victory over Westmeath in their final group stage match, a game that they could easily have dismissed as utterly pointless as they were already consigned to a relegation play-off.

Subsequent to that they claimed a hugely significant victory over Laois, which not only secured their Division Two status for a second year, but sets them in the best possible stead for this weekend’s preliminary round contest against Donegal.

Declan Bonner’s side have a point to prove to themselves as much as anybody else in this year’s Ulster Championship.

Losing to Cavan in last year’s final was a nightmare made flesh, but early indications are that it hasn’t knocked the stuffing out of the team either. They reached the Division One semi-final, and barring the concession of four goals against Monaghan, did so in a fairly impressive manner.

They subsequently came unstuck against Dublin in the league semi-final, but it didn’t pass unnoticed that Donegal moved to a more solid defensive model which was badly needed after their horror show at the back against Monaghan.

In terms of personnel, the big news is that Michael Murphy has been passed fit after sitting out their final two league games. However, they’ll be hoping for improvements from some of their key players, including Ryan McHugh and Ciaran Thompson who had relatively quiet league campaigns.

Declan Bonner has also been faced with a few selection headaches in defence, a relatively good problem to have all things considered.

Odhran McFadden has rejoined the panel after a stint in Lebanon and played his first game in six months against Dublin, speedsters Eoghan ‘Ban’ Gallagher and Brendan McCole have also been going well, and Eoin McHugh’s conversion to a man-marking defender has possibly gone better than anticipated. Peadar Mogan has also been played as sweeper, and Neil McGee has returned from injury, so they have the pieces in place to address their defensive issues in the championship.

Further up the pitch, Caolan McGonagle has improved massively and has nailed down his place in the middle sector, and Paddy McBrearty is back to his imperious best in the full-forward line.

Down won’t need reminding that they were tanked by Donegal when they last met in the Ulster Championship back in 2018 (even though Neil McGee was dismissed after just 11 minutes of play). That was the final year of Eamonn Burns’ tenure, and they’ve continued to have mixed fortunes under their current manager Paddy Tally. In saying that, they seem to have found form at the opportune moment and they had starring performances in all sectors of the pitch in their do-or-die play-off clash against Laois.

Rory Burns, who shipped heavy criticism earlier in the league, has shown courage to come out the other side with assured performances against both Laois and Westmeath, while the full-back line has also made improvements.

In the half-back line, Darren O’Hagan has returned from injury which is a massive boost to the team, but they’re somewhat short of options at midfield following the news earlier this week that Johnny Flynn will miss the rest of the season after he ruptured his Achilles’ tendon at country training. That may open up a space for Kilcoo youngster Ryan McEvoy, who made an impressive cameo against Laois, but it makes a tough task even greater for Down as their opponents Donegal have serious physical presence in the middle of the pitch.

Liam Kerr, Barry O’Hagan and Cory Quinn all have the potential to do damage up front, but Donegal are unlikely to be in accommodating mood after what transpired against Monaghan, and they’ve also shown they have what it takes to cope with the absence of Michael Murphy.

Staying up in Division Two and putting in a respectable performance against Donegal would probably take the pressure off Paddy Tally, but defeat for Declan Bonner would be absolutely unthinkable. With that in mind, it’s hard to see Donegal losing their focus and they should run out fairly comfortable victors (but we thought that last year against Cavan, didn’t we?).