Ryan Magill sees the Tailteann Cup as an opportunity for Down to bounce back from last Sunday's crushing Ulster SFC semi-final defeat to Armagh.

The 0-14 to 3-33 loss in Clones, coupled with Westmeath's Leinster SFC semi-final win over Kildare, consigned the Mourne County to the second-tier championship where they will host Leitrim in the opening round on May 16.

"It's massive to have another competition that we can bounce back from [after] the Ulster Championship," Magill told RTÉ at yesterday's Tailteann Cup launch in Croke Park.

"If you win the Tailteann Cup, you have an automatic spot in the Sam Maguire next year so we'll try to get ready to go again and try our best and hopefully be in the Sam Maguire next year.

"It's difficult to get back on the horse after taking such a bad beating last week but, no, if you have any aspirations to go further we need to dust ourselves down and go again and see where that takes us."

He added: "We know within ourselves, the quality we have and the hard work we put in, we had lads who played brilliant games against Donegal and then maybe just didn't show up against Armagh.

"Neither game is how we [see] ourselves, there are the highs of one week and the lows of next week.

"We just have to keep going."

Tweet

Most Read Stories