By Shaun Casey

DOWN champions Saval will hope to use the “underdog tag” to their advantage as they head into the opening round of the Ulster IFC against Tyrone side Clonoe, the outright favourites for the competition, says joint-captain Daniel McCarthy.

Clonoe have already achieved the domestic league and championship double in the Red Hand County, returning to senior football for next season in seriously impressive style. Saval, however, have full faith in their own changing room.

McCarthy, who captains the team along with centre half-forward Keelan Rice, believes they have enough quality to pose Clonoe plenty of problems, and they’ll be working hard to figure out a game-plan that will give them the best opportunity of advancing to the semi-finals.

“We know that we have a massive challenge coming up against Clonoe. We’ve watched a couple of their games, and they are a fantastic outfit,” said the Saval midfielder.

“We have full faith in the quality of our team so it’s up to us now to use that underdog tag to our advantage and really give it a good go. They’re probably a senior outfit in Tyrone and we’re well aware of that.

“We have quality right throughout our team. We’ll do our homework, our management will do the same, and we’ll try to get a game-plan in place and who knows, we could cause a big upset and go on to the next stage.”

Saval, managed by former Armagh player Martin O’Rourke, head into the competition having sampled the Ulster Championship before, back in 2022. Then, they collected their first Down IFC title since 1995, so the provincial scene was all new to everyone.

They faced Monaghan league and championship winners Corduff in a bruising encounter that had more cards flashed than flags raised. The men from the Mourne County finished the game with 12 players and 11 points adrift on the scoreboard.

Three years on, a lot of the same Saval players are back for another go at the Ulster Championship and McCarthy, who lined out at corner-forward against Corduff back then, hopes they have learned their lesson and can put in a better showing this time around.

“We remember it quite well, I think the occasion kind of got to us,” McCarthy continued. “I think it was our first day out in the Ulster Club at any level so there was a massive hype going into it, but we didn’t give a good account of ourselves.

“That’s something we’re trying to correct this time around. It’s not new to us now. It might sound a bit trivial, but between winning the Down Championship and playing in Ulster was maybe five or six weeks, it was such a long wait.

“Trying to get up and going again didn’t help us, I think but the short turnaround this time around and the fact that we went through the experience before will definitely help us.”