IAN O'RIORDANtalks to Benny Coulter who partly reveals how Down got back on track after their Ulster final defeat

DOWN AGAINST Kildare in the All-Ireland football semi-final seems such an unlikely pairing – at least this year – that they must have conspired against fate to get there. Benny Coulter agrees. So much so, actually, that Coulter reckons if Down had achieved their original goal of winning the Ulster title they wouldn’t be where they are now – one victory away from the All-Ireland final.

Losing to Tyrone in the Ulster semi-final appeared to signal the end of their assault on the All-Ireland – particularly given Down’s fairly horrendous record in the qualifiers. It was relatively close on the day, and Down might well have stolen it had a late goal chance for fellow forward Danny Hughes not been missed. Coulter, now, is entirely forgiving.

“Sure, I’m glad now that that goal chance didn’t go in,” says Coulter, with a characteristic wry smile. “Looking back at it. If we’d won that game, it was a 50-50 game against Monaghan in the Ulster final, who could well have beaten us. Then we would have been out a week later against Kildare, and probably have been dumped out of the All-Ireland. That’s the way it works and, in hindsight, it might have been a blessing in disguise.”

Coulter, in other words, would sacrifice a potential Ulster title for a shot at this All-Ireland – and he’s far from alone.

Kildare’s defeat to Louth in the Leinster quarter-final likewise appeared to signal the end of their assault on the All-Ireland title. Again, things changed massively through the qualifiers.

Coulter doesn’t quite reveal the secret of Down’s turnaround, but does point to the first night back training after the Tyrone defeat, or rather, a training session that became a meeting.

“Yeah, we met for training on the Tuesday, but it actually turned into a meeting. We were depressed going in. Heads were down. I was chatting to Danny (Hughes) before on the phone, discussing it, and saying it was the same old crack, same old s***e.

“We came out of that meeting and we were really focused. We had a good chat about it, that we weren’t as bad in that Tyrone game as we thought.

“It wasn’t physical. I won’t give it all away, but there were a couple of things that we didn’t do at certain points of the game. That happened against Kerry at certain points too but we changed that, unlike five or six weeks earlier.

“A couple of us were able to get it sorted a couple of times on the pitch against Kerry. It was really about players taking ownership. That’s actually what we done against Kerry, what we were hoping to change.”

The impact of first-year manager James McCartan can’t be underestimated either, but there’s also been a stronger, less anodyne look about this Down team, thanks in part to the graduation of the successful minor and under-21 teams of recent years.

“Them young lads have no fear,” says Coulter. “The 2005 team that won the minors, them lads haven’t lost too many matches in their career and they came in here this year expecting to win maybe an Ulster title, which we haven’t done. But they had no fear at all, not against Kerry, whereas us older lads like myself have won nothing and there might be a wee bit of fear there that we will win nothing in our careers.”

In fact Coulter could spend a great deal of time recounting the lows of his career, starting with the shock loss to Longford in the qualifiers back in 2002.

“That was the first real low point of mine, the Longford one. It was Pete McGrath’s last game. At that stage, we weren’t going anywhere. We were all over the shop as a whole team, as a county, as everything. We just weren’t prepared for championship football the way we should be.

“The second one was Paddy O’Rourke’s last game against Sligo. We had a brilliant set-up. We had everything going for us. We had a great manager and backroom team, everything bar players really. I don’t know what happened us that year.

“So at the start of the year I didn’t think we were going to be in this position, and I am going to be honest about it. But I would say this next game will be a different level again. Kildare never panic, strong on the ball. They have a game plan and that’s what they do. We know that we are probably seen as most people’s outsiders to win the competition.”

It’s worth noting that both Down and Kildare were quoted at odds of 40 to 1 to win the All-Ireland at the start of the season.

Down’s National League form had been marginally more impressive, but still both teams looked some way off the so-called big three.

So was Coulter tempted to place a bet at such generous odds? “We could have been 100 to 1, and I probably still wouldn’t have bet.”