‘It shows that we can compete with the best’: Peter Fegan taking positives from Down’s Ulster exit to fancied Donegal

DOWN might not have been able to rip up the script on Sunday – but Peter Fegan believes their Ulster semi-final exit to Donegal proved the Mournemen are able to mix it with the top teams in the country.

Boss Conor Laverty spoke afterwards about the preparation that went into their clash with Jim McGuinness’s men, as Down aimed to upset the applecart after days of discussion about whether a possible provincial final meeting between Donegal and Armagh should take place in Clones or Croke Park.

As many expected, the same pair will meet again in that Ulster decider back at St Tiernach’s Park on May 10, while the Mourne County prepare for the start of the All-Ireland round-robin series – with their fate revealed when the draw is made on Wednesday.

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Though Donegal progressed with six points to spare in the end, Down made life difficult at times, with the Mournemen left to rue missed goal chances for John McGeough and Shay Millar as Tir Chonaill took control.

But Fegan feels that, having come up against one of the favourites for the All-Ireland crown, and performed well even in relegation from Division Two, Down can take crumbs of comfort heading into the All-Ireland series.

“We’ll take a few positives from that game,” said the Burren defender.

“We were in the mix, we were in contention there. Coming towards the end, a few wasted chances could have brought the game back to two or three points.

“It shows that we can compete with the best – Donegal are one of the best teams in Ireland at the minute. We’ll take positives from that.

“We need to be playing against the best teams to improve ourselves. I know we got relegated from Division Two but each game, there was one or two points in it, could have gone either way, we were just unfortunate to get relegated.

“It shows that we should be up with the big teams. Coming into the All-Ireland, we’ll probably be underdogs for most games, but that suits us.

“We’ll give every game a good rattle and see how we can push on, and see where it can take us.”

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Even though they weren’t at their best on Sunday, Donegal demonstrated the kind of clinical edge that sets the top teams apart from the rest of the chasing pack.

Two minutes after McGeough passed up an opportunity to go for goal, a booming Shaun Patton kick-out led to the game’s only major, Patrick McBrearty ghosting in at the back post to palm home from Michael Langan’s pass.

Then, any time Down threatened to close the gap and drag themselves back to within touching distance, Tir Chonaill played keep ball and took the sting out of the game.

And Fegan knows those are lessons this young Down side must learn from as their journey progresses.

“You have to be clinical against teams like that because those opportunities don’t come around all the time.

“We were eight points down at half time, that could have easily been four or five points, which would have put us in a better position going into the second half.

“We knew we had to come out fighting, we had the breeze, we knew we were going to have to be accurate with the two-pointers… there was a few missed chances, a few goal chances missed.

“Then towards the end there, they had the ball for two or three minutes; we couldn’t get the ball off them. They’re good game managers, you can tell they’ve been working on that in training.

“When you get a bit of momentum, they just know how to kill a game. It’s hard to get that momentum back but the boys dug in, everyone gave 100 per cent there. We can’t fault anyone.”