Up and Down: Laverty aiming to get the balance right for Tailteann Cup decider

The Ulster side look to round out their season with a win over Wicklow at HQ. 

SOFT SEATS: Oisin McConville of Wicklow and Down boss Conor Laverty. Pic: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

In his GAA+ interview on the pitch in Letterkenny after beating Donegal in April, Conor Laverty revealed the extent of his and the Down team's preparation.

"The commitment they've given me for four weeks, they've put their lives on hold, we've been together 10 days in a row now, so we have, studying Donegal, making sure we had every i dotted and t crossed," he said. "We left no stone unturned."

The problem was, it wasn't sustainable, or even close to it. And had it continued, the obsessive approach may even have turned players away from the game entirely.

So when Down lost heavily to Armagh the following weekend, Laverty pulled it all right back completely. Dropped the intensity and searched for the fun in it all again.

"I felt for the 10 or 12 weeks (before Donegal), having that mental intensity of going to the well with analysing, sitting for hours upon hours looking at opposition, diving into key players, I felt we would have burnt them out and maybe would have made them sick of it," said Laverty.

He tells you this by way of explanation for their surprising loss to Offaly in the early stages of the Tailteann Cup. 

His feeling is that they went too much the other way for that game, turning up essentially without their homework completed.

"It probably just proved a point to us that if we're not preparing ourselves, and doing our homework, and executing our game plan and having plans in place, then any team in Ireland can turn you over," said the Down manager.

Since then, his feeling is that Down have got the balance pretty much spot on, and here they are, back in a third Tailteann Cup final in four seasons.

He's talking about the collective balance, of course. His own approach continues to be as obsessive as ever.

"I'm probably still a psychopath, so I don't think that has changed much," smiled the father of six boys, acknowledging his utter devotion to the sport.

"My evenings off at the minute are filled with my wee boys; U6s, U-8s, U-10s. We are with Down on Tuesdays, Thursdays and at the weekends, but Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays we'll have our wee boys out and so that's important too. Probably my switch off is a wee bit of farming and getting out and getting a wee bit of work done there. I don't see football as a hobby, football is too serious as a hobby."

The Monday evening after losing to Armagh, a game in which 'the wheels came off' for Down, he was so distraught he considered skipping underage training in Kilcoo. Couldn't face it. But he put on a brave face and fronted up.

One young buck, keen to point out the blindingly obvious, met him on the pitch and gave it to him unfiltered.

"Down didn't do too well yesterday," the kid noted, deadpan. "And I said, 'Thank you, yeah, very good, you should be on The Sunday Game'. Naturally he was getting no frees in the match whenever they were playing later on!"

The same evening, a young girl, Mary Ellen Branagan, the daughter of Kilcoo clubmate Aidan Branagan - Laverty and Branagan jointly captained Kilcoo to All-Ireland success in 2022 - came tearing out onto the pitch with a folded up piece of paper that she handed over.

When he opened it up, it was a picture of him that she'd coloured in and attached a message to.

"Jesus, you talk about an emotional wreck on the field!" said Laverty. "She had coloured it in and then on the back of it had this wee note and wrote on it, 'To Conor, from Mary Ellen, love you so much'. This wee thing, coloured in and all. Aidan said to me, 'I told her not to be coming out onto the field!'

"I'll never forget that. I remember just going into school the next day and telling the teachers and the staffroom about it. We're all lunatics and we take everything so seriously, but something like that there...you know, I wasn't fit to smile or be in good form, and my wife even said to me, 'Jesus, it took Mary Ellen to put you in good form' and I said, 'I know'."

He's been smiling more lately but Down must finish the job today.

"I don't think the silverware is the highest stake at play, particularly now," said Laverty, desperate to push on in the All-Ireland SFC race in the coming seasons. "I think the ticket to Sam Maguire football next year is the biggest attraction."