GAA: Down's O'Reilly delays team selection

Down manager Jimmy O’Reilly is holding off naming his team to play New York in Sunday’s Senior Hurling Championship clash until he assesses conditions in the United States.

The Down ladies football team travelled to New York recently, bringing back reports of difficult playing conditions.

"We’ve heard that the pitch is very hard and bumpy so we’re going to leave the final team announcement as late as we can," said O’Reilly.

"There are one or two players carrying niggles, so I want to see how they will stand up to the hard surface over there.

"On top of that, there’s a bit of a heat wave so I want to hold off and naming the team."

The two sides met in Down in last year’s championship when the home side ran out easy winners. It was New York’s first SHC outing.

However, O’Reilly isn’t expecting it to be so easy this time around.

"They have a few handy players," he said. "They bolstered their squad with the arrival of Paul Green, the former Waterford player, and they have a few others we’d want to be wary of."

It hasn’t been an ideal season for Down, whose league campaign was seriously disrupted by the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

"We’ve had a fits and starts league campaign because of the foot-and-mouth outbreak," said O’Reilly.

"A number of teams didn’t travel up to play us. We’ve had five matches, that doesn’t really represent any kind of campaign to us at all."

Down were tipped as likely candidates for promotion to Division One but it wasn’t to be.

"I think we finished low in our table simply because we didn’t have regular games," he said.

"It’s been a disappointing campaign, not in terms of the way we played, but because of the lack of regular games."

Now, O’Reilly is hoping to make amends with a result in New York.