EAMONN BURNS isn’t going to rip up the blueprint, but the Mayobridge man says he’ll have to ‘tailor’ it in his first year as the Down manager.
Although beaten 1-11 to 0-11 by Donegal on Sunday in his first competitive outing as the Mourne County boss, it proved a useful experience to get the year off and running.
Down mixed the old with the new and the long game with the short game at Sean MacCumhaill Park.
Picture caption: Eoin McHugh of Donegal on the attack against Down on Sunday. Picture courtesy of Geraldine Diver
There is an obligation on Down teams to play a certain way – and Burns won’t alter that too much.
It was something that Jim McGuinness, the former Donegal manager, touched on before the Ulster final in 2011.
He called it ‘the Down Swagger’.
“You cannot deny Down have that,” McGuinness said at the time.
“The players think that because they have the history and the supporters think that because of the history.”
Burns knows all about history having won Sam Maguire in 1991 and 1994.
“Down are usually quite flamboyant in the way they play,” Burns said in Ballybofey.
“We’re not going to change that overnight. We just need to be able to tailor it to suit the personnel we have on any given day.
“I thought we played ok. There’s a couple of decisions we need to make in terms of how we use the ball in the last third, but I thought our defence played well and our midfield structures were good.
“There’s a lot of positives, but we have a lot to work on.”
“We gave a wee bit of ball away off the foot in the first half, which we need to take a look at over the next week or two,” Burns said.
“But I thought whenever we ran the ball, we were quite confident on it.
“A running game in January is tough. It’s hard going, very demanding on the legs, so we opted to kick a few times. A couple of times it came off quite well, but the Donegal backline was quite experienced.”
Down will take on Fermanagh at the weekend in Newry before hosting St Mary’s College next Wednesday.
A semi-final place is well within the grasp of Burns and company.
The Down manager said: “The extra game wouldn’t do us any harm. We can realistically still qualify from this group so we’re looking forward to getting back on Tuesday night and working on the positives, and addressing what needs to be addressed.
“They’re all very upbeat. They would have liked to come here and win but that’s the way it goes. We gave away a slack goal at the start and that was the difference.”
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