Down football is in a bad place and Ross Carr doesn’t hold out any hope of his native county upsetting the odds against Monaghan at Clones on Saturday.
Shock results are most often produced in the northern province. The Mournemen ousted Monaghan in the Ulster Semi-final in 2017 before losing to the same opposition in the Qualifiers following their provincial final loss to Tyrone.
Not even mention of Cavan’s famous 2020 triumph stirs the optimist in Carr, despite the similarity of the Breffnimen suffering relegation to Division Three before that season’s Championship.
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In fact, the former two-time All-Ireland winner believes Down could find themselves in Division Four before they return to Division Two.
“Down against Monaghan this weekend - it is a mismatch going on current form,” stated Carr.
“I mean, you could have one of those performances and, yes, upsets do happen. It would be a huge shock, probably the biggest shock of the Championship.
“You are talking of something on the scale of, and I mean this with all due respect, Cork beating Kerry. Does anyone think that is going to happen with the form of those teams this season?
“It is hard to see Down beating Monaghan and I just don’t see it happening.
“We’ve lost a couple of players I thought performed well in the League. Liam Kerr and Finn McElroy are away. One played at centre-forward, the other at full-back - two crucial positions to fill.
“When the result comes through on Saturday, the awful thing is people won’t be devastated because the disappointment has already set in. We’re in a bad place. The powers that be have a serious responsibility to fix this.
“Unless it is fixed, we might be in Division Four before we are back in Division Two.”
James McCartan succeeded Carr as Down football manager at the end of the 2009 season and led the Mournemen to a surprise All-Ireland final appearance in his first year, but they lost out to Cork in the decider.
McCartan’s second spell as Down boss came about by default rather than by design as he was one of the last managerial appointments on the inter-county scene last November following a protracted search to find Paddy Tally’s replacement.
Down were always going to be starting the 2022 season behind the eight ball, especially with Kilcoo pursuing All-Ireland glory during the early part of the year.
Yet, while Carr feels his former teammate isn’t totally blameless, he says Down's current standing in Gaelic football has been a long time coming.
“None of us are naïve enough to think that, if things don’t go well, none of it is our fault. James is too clued in to let throw-away remarks bother him,” said Carr.
“In his defence, this has been happening for a while. It wouldn’t have mattered, in my opinion, who the manager of Down was.
“The fact that it was James probably galvanised the fellas for as long as it was possible. But this has been happening in Down for a while purely because there has been a complete neglect or a lack of ability to produce an environment where we get the best out of young footballers.
“That isn’t the senior manager’s fault. That predates James’ time, predates Paddy Tally’s time, Éamonn Burns’ time. . . we have been like ostriches with our heads in the sand.
“This has been coming down the line. For those of us who live and breathe football in Down, this isn’t a great shock. It is a great disappointment, but not a shock.”
He added: “The performances in the League were disappointing.
“The optimism is low for this weekend on historical performances. Add to that the fact that Monaghan kept their Division One status once again and performed, at times, very well in Division One. They would see themselves as potential Ulster champions and they’d be disappointed if they didn’t at least get to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
“We went to Derry and that was a tough beginning given that James only got the job late on.
“The teams Down needed to beat weren’t Derry, Galway or Roscommon. Down needed to do well against Meath, Offaly, Clare - they were the key games. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the results. When we didn’t get the result against Offaly, I think the confidence just fell away.”
Down’s preparations for their Championship campaign have been overshadowed by the fallout following an alleged discipline breach at a training weekend in Dublin earlier this month.
Carr expressed his annoyance that the issue didn’t remain in-house, but doesn’t think it will impact the team’s performance.
“I thank God there were no mobile phones or social media when we were playing football!
“I’m not sure what has happened," said the former All-Star.
"The disappointing thing is that it got out. That means that there are fellas on that panel who are not buying into the group ideology.
“We still don’t know if the incident was minor or major. Sometimes social media can be a great stirrer, but that’s the least of the problems in Down football. . .it was magnified because things aren’t going well and there’s a Championship game coming up.
“Regardless of what happened or didn’t happen in Dublin three weeks’ ago, it will have no bearing on this match."
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