By John Harrington

Niall McParland says Down’s upsurge in fortunes under new manager Conor Laverty is due in no small part to his success in uniting a panel that was previously fractured by club rivalries.

Kilcoo’s dominance of the Down club championship in recent years – they’ve won 10 of the last 11 county titles – didn’t exactly make them very popular with other clubs in the county.

The reluctance of some Kilcoo players to then commit to playing inter-county football stirred the pot some more.

But according to team centre-back McParland, the appointment of a Kilcoo club-man in Laverty as team-manager has seen the Down panel come together and put previous differences aside.

“Absolutely,” says McParland. “Armagh had a team like Kilcoo in Crossmaglen and when a club team is really successful in a county then everyone else is envious of them.

“Down couldn’t attract a lot of the Kilcoo players because they were so involved in Kilcoo but Conor coming in opened everything up and he knows the Kilcoo players so well and they’re winners. It’s naturally in them and they’ve been winning for 10 years so to have lads like that around training is brilliant.

“You have thoughts about people: ‘I don’t like him on the pitch’ or whatever but once you train with them and eat with them after training you realise that everybody is pretty similar, we’re all GAA people and normal lads and the walls quickly come down and you build good friendships.

“There are lads from Kilcoo I didn’t know until this year and now I would call them friends. That’s just the way it goes and it can only be positive for our squad.”

McParland believes Laverty made a personal effort to ease any tensions that might have been there in the past, and now the Down panel is one happy family regardless of club allegiances.

“If there was an issue – like the Burren lads going to play for Conor with the fierce rivalry they have with Kilcoo – I think Conor made the phone-calls himself,” says McParland.

“The likes of me who would have no problems with Kilcoo - because we’re not playing them often enough - Declan Morgan rang me.

“Conor wanted to say: ‘I think you’re good enough, park the club and come and play for Down’. That’s what it is and I wouldn’t see any favouritism or anything.

“The craic is good with the Kilcoo lads, Conor is sharp enough and the likes of Niall Kane are the same. None of them are shy! The craic is great but when Conor needs to get serious it’s a very quick change and nobody would step across him.

“He rules with an iron fist but you wouldn’t get any of the Down lads saying a bad word about him, he’s been great for Down football.

“I’ve been in different set-ups and they’ve all been great but Conor has been able to pull it all together and it feels like more of a complete package.

“Obviously we’re not the complete package but we’re taking positive steps forward.”

McParland views Down’s season to date as a positive learning curve, and believes the chance to now compete in the Tailteann Cup and try to win the county’s first piece of senior silverware in 29 years is a huge opportunity.

“I’m obviously getting towards the end of my career but our team in general is a younger Down team,” he says.

“So this year was a good experience – we had a big Championship day out against Donegal and it was nice to get a win but it was a sobering experience against Armagh on a big day when it doesn’t go right.

“But that’s an experience you have to get through when big days don’t go right and it’s hard to fix and you can’t hear the management when you’re on the pitch and maybe lads on our team hadn’t experienced that before.

“Going forward that’ll be a really big learning curve for us and there are maybe more bad days than good days in GAA, there are only three trophies to compete for so a lot of counties end of empty-handed.

“There are positives there – in the League we were very close. We finished third level on points with Fermanagh and were beaten on score-difference so there was a kick of the ball in it.

“Next year, when we go into the League, we know we literally know we can’t afford to drop a point, you can’t lose a game if you’re looking for promotion.

“It was a lesson learned and we’ll lick our wounds and go again. It’s great to have the Tailteann Cup because we have lofty ambitions for where we’d like to be in the future but right now this is exactly where we’re meant to be and it’s great that we have a competition that we can realistically try to win, or compete in at least.

“There are some great teams in this competition that are well capable of turning us over. I’d say if you were looking at the betting we’re maybe second or third but it’s a great stage to be learning on.”