Laverty delighted with Down's character in comeback win

​By Paul Keane

Down manager Conor Laverty says the experience of winning a national final after extra time at Croke Park is priceless.

The Mourne County, who previously clinched the 2024 Tailteann Cup title at the same venue, came from behind to firstly force extra time and then pinch the silverware.

Laverty said it wasn't the perfect performance and he acknowledged that a repeat wouldn't do when they meet Donegal in the Ulster SFC on April 26 in Letterkenny.

But he was delighted with the heart shown by an experienced crew of performers like man of the match Daniel Guinness to eke out a result that should secure Down All-Ireland SFC football this summer.

"That's probably the highlight of the night, that whenever you were three points down and maybe it was at 62 or 63 minutes on the clock, in that period I felt we had real leaders that stood up," said Laverty.

"A lot of our lads have gained experience of those moments over many years, of being in tough battles, and thankfully they came to the fore for us.

"Listen, I wouldn't say I'm overly happy with a lot of the aspects of the game. I think the character would be my highlight. We still have a lot of pieces to improve on but whenever we were scrambling defending, I think that was exceptional, putting their bodies on the line for the team.

"There were a couple of balls dropped in there around the goalmouth and Down men were dying on them, so that's a good trait to have in this team."

Asked if the same performance would be enough to trouble Donegal, Laverty shook his head.

"I don't think that performance would do against Donegal, I don't think it would take a rocket scientist to come up with that answer," he said.

"Wexford's ability to get their shots off...I suppose we were probably quite conscious of the Wexford goalkeeper being such a two-point threat (if we fouled). He'd been one of their top scorers throughout the League. I felt that probably led to us being a wee bit standoffish in that area.

"We were coming into this game raging hot favourites and Wexford had nothing to lose after brilliant back-to-back promotions. They probably played with that wee bit more freedom in the second half.

"But going to Letterkenny, I don't think there'd be anybody in the country that'll be expecting a Down win. So whenever you're in that position, you can go there, really play with freedom and have a real go at it."

Wexford manager John Hegarty was disappointed but proud after the battling defeat.

"We were written off today as we've been written off before every single game we've played this year," said Hegarty. "There has been no game that we've played where we were the favourite. But you can only prepare a team to go out and give everything they have and that's entirely what the lads did tonight.

"You'd like to have converted a couple more of the chances that we had in the second half because I thought we absolutely dominated that second half. You'd like to have converted those but apart from that, there's not much more you can ask of them.

"I think the one regret we'll have when we sit down and look at it is that we didn't make our dominance show on the scoreboard. We came from three down to being three up but while that's impressive, it wasn't a reflection of how the play was because I felt we were even better than that in the second half.

"We had loads of balls bobbling in and around the goals. Another day, one of those goes in and it changes the complexion."