The Downs have to overcome Wee County champs on Sunday

When I was a wee boy the only person I knew from the Wee County was from Ardee, and he would brag about Dermot O’Brien in the same way that I would go on about our very own Joe Dolan.

Both men are sadly now deceased, having had very high profiles in the Irish music scene. I have never heard any tales of the man now rightly commemorated with a statue in the centre of his native Mullingar as being much of a sportsman, but Ardee’s champion accordion player had captained his county when they last won the Sam Maguire Cup in 1957, famously almost failing to gain entry to Croke Park on the day of the All-Ireland final in an era when even teams travelling by bus together to a big game was not on the agenda.

All of 65 years later, Louth have not only never regained Sam, but a Leinster title has also eluded them, Joe Sheridan’s nimble antics with his hands in 2010 as deceptive to the naked eye as O’Brien’s lightning-quick accordion-playing! Undaunted by that most heart-breaking ‘defeat’, and commendably driven by the ‘losing’ manager that day 12 years ago, Peter Fitzpatrick TD, now chairman of the Louth County Board, the Wee County has lofty ambitions on and off the field of play – witness the bold appointment of Tyrone legend Mickey Harte to manage the red and white-clad senior team two years ago.

Messrs Harte and Fitzpatrick are sure to be in attendance in TEG Cusack Park next Sunday when O’Brien’s former club, St Mary’s, do battle against newly-crowned Flanagan Cup winners, The Downs. The Ardee outfit ended their long wait of 27 years to secure the Louth senior football championship title by seeing off Newtown Blues 1-18 to 1-15 in a replayed final at Dowdallshill, seven days after Lar Wall’s troops had bridged a 17-year gap by dethroning St Loman’s, Mullingar.

St Mary’s, beaten finalists in 2016 and 2020, were given very little time to celebrate as they were in provincial action a week later. In this they showed no ill-effects from celebrating their victory in the Joe Ward Cup decider with a two-goal win against Colmcille, albeit the margin is somewhat misleading as the hosts rattled off 1-2 in the game's dying moments, having been pushed to the pin of their collar by the visitors from Longford.

Wall was an interested spectator at both games, as he clarified: “There was a few of us at the Louth final and then a week later they beat Colmcille. St Mary’s are a formidable outfit, not too unlike ourselves in the way that they play. They like to play an attacking game and they have a lot of young guys. Like any team at this stage of the year, they are a confident and balanced side. They have good depth in their squad as well. They have a lot of guys at a similar level to us. Also, they have a few experienced inter-county guys that they like to spring from the bench. By and large, they inter-change their players quite a bit, and they seem to do the business for them in most of their games. However, we are very focused on ourselves and getting ourselves to the best level we can get to. We know that if we do that, we’ll be a match for anyone in any competition.”

As stated, this is new ground for both teams at Westmeath GAA headquarters next Sunday. In this regard, Wall opined: “The perennial Leinster campaigners tend to adapt better to the competition, the teams who play in it regularly. I know it was Louth opposition that beat The Downs in both 2003 and 2005, but those results will have absolutely no bearing on next Sunday. We have our own ambitions. We feel we have a really good team and we know we can get to even a higher level than we got to in Westmeath, but we know we are going up a notch in standard. We’ll be focusing on that 60-plus minutes to get an opportunity to play in Croke Park in a Leinster semi-final.”

The winners of Ratoath (Meath) v Rhode (Offaly) will face next Sunday’s victors in TEG Cusack Park in the provincial championship penultimate round.

The Downs have represented Westmeath as Flanagan Cup winners in six previous campaigns. By far the most noteworthy was a memorable four-game odyssey in 1972/73, albeit it ended very disappointingly with a heavy defeat at the hands of a powerful St Vincent’s side in the decider in Páirc Tailteann, the Metropolitans’ mixture of youth and experience proving much too strong for Dom Murtagh and his merry men.

Interestingly, The Downs have lost all three previous clashes with Louth champions, including (as mentioned above) their only two appearances so far this millennium. Wall’s charges will undoubtedly be mustard keen to change that gloomy statistic next Sunday afternoon.

Their results to date have been as follows:

1970/71

11/4/71, Cusack Park, The Downs 0-8 Kilbride (Meath) 0-7

12/5/71, Drogheda, Newtown Blues (Louth) 4-9 The Downs 0-10

1972/73

19/11/72, Longford, The Downs 2-7 Clonguish (Longford) 1-8

3/12/72, Cusack Park, The Downs 1-11 Ferbane (Offaly) 1-9

18/3/73, Tullamore, The Downs 2-8 Carbury (Kildare) 2-7

15/4/73, Navan, St Vincent’s (Dublin) 6-10 The Downs 2-5

1974/75

24/11/74, Navan, Summerhill (Meath) 2-7 The Downs 2-3

1980/81

23/11/80, Portlaoise, The Downs 1-7 O’Dempsey’s (Laois) 1-4

7/12/80, Newbridge, Éire Óg (Carlow) 2-6 The Downs 0-7

2003/04

26/10/03, St Patrick’s (Louth) 3-8 The Downs 0-8

2005/06

6/11/05, Mattock Rangers (Louth) 1-8 The Downs 0-10