No time like the present

AMID the hype and the hope, a kernel of doubt lurks in the minds of some in Down.

Sixteen years without so much as a championship game in August and now this. The fear is that it may be too much too soon.

“I know what people are saying,” says talisman Benny Coulter. “This is Down’s first year on a run and there is no chance that they will win it because they are only under their first year with James and they have never even got to the new quarter-final stages.

“The way I look at it, we won our first title with the club in Mayobridge in ‘99 and it was our first title in something like 60 years. That was the year I thought we should have won Ulster and maybe the All-Ireland.

“That is as far away now as it has ever been for us. That was probably our best year to win an Ulster title with our club so you just have to grasp the moment and go for it.”

Coulter has waited long enough.

His last experience of All-Ireland day was back in 1999 when his Down minor team overcame Mayo and Cork’s seniors fell three points short of Meath in the headline performance.

He hasn’t been back to Croke Park on September’s third Sunday ever since. The thoughts of spending a full day going to see other men live out his ambition held no interest for him.

He admits to being surprised by the way it has all panned out for Down this year but the recent disappointments suffered by their senior sides never completely obscured the youthful signs of promise and renewal.

An All-Ireland minor title five years ago was accompanied by two Ulster U21 titles in recent years and only Cork’s late, late show in Portlaoise last year denied them the national equivalent to go with it.

Coulter kept a watching brief on the future. Five of those U21s learned their trade with Mayobridge and McCartan has infused the senior side with a generous supply of that youth to good effect.

“They have probably brought more skill to the team than anything else, Marty (Clarke) especially, but look around the team and you have guys like Conor Garvey in his second year, Kevin McKernan and Paul McComiskey and James Colgan.

“They are all out of that 2005 minor team. They are all winners in some respect. A lot of those guys will be starting and in main positions too. It is great to have them lads about and they have done well so far.”

Another honourable mention is reserved for Kalum King, the cage-fighting but quietly spoken midfielder whose defensive-minded default setting has fundamentally altered the DNA of this Down team.

In previous years, Dan Gordon and Ambrose Rogers held the centre but both were rollicking adventurers who liked nothing better than a raid into opposition territory and that left Down vulnerable.

With King alongside Rogers – when fit – McCartan has been able to draft Gordon into the full-back role where he has helped solidify a defence that had for too long been culpable of largesse.

The entire team has been well drilled in the sort of mass defensive system that Tyrone have long mastered and which Dublin trialled so successfully this summer. However, it has not been at the expense of flair or attacking intent.

The last 10 years may have been barren ones for Down but they have never lacked for attacking talent and, in Clarke, they possess a player with the ability, the vision and the confidence to knit it all together.

Coulter, who has been Down’s billboard player for the last ten years, has never betrayed any annoyance with the media’s fascination with Clarke, however. Instead, he is simply thankful that Clarke is back in Ireland after his loss to Australia back in 2005.

“He was a massive, massive loss and people don’t realise that Marty was probably our best underage talent to come through in maybe 20 or 30 years – probably the best underage talent that Down have ever had.

“We lost a player in a position that we hadn’t filled – centre-forward – since Greg Blaney. We’ve played three or four boys there and it didn’t work out. They hadn’t the same vision as Marty. To have him back is perfect.”