Danny Toner hopes Down hurlers inspire a new generation

By John Harrington

Danny Toner’s contribution to Down hurling has been considerable both as a player and a coach.

He made his senior county debut back in 2011 and has passed on his love of the game to countless young hurlers in Down in his roles as a Down Games Promotion Officer and now Ulster GAA Regional Hurler Development Officer.

Many of those young players he mentored are now his team-mates on the Down senior hurling team, so he has a better understanding than most of the huge effort it has taken for the Mourne County to contest Saturday’s Allianz Hurling League Division Two Final against Kildare and win qualification to Division 1B for 2026.

They’ve been men on a mission since Ronan Sheehan took charge of the team seven years ago, and to get a reward like this for all they’ve put into the project makes it feel so much more worthwhile.

“It's very, very satisfying as a player,” says Toner. “Eoghan Sands said it in an interview on RTE after the Kerry match that you don't really play under the big lights too often so to get a bit of recognition like this and to secure promotion is huge.

“It helps keep this bunch of players together for another while again with the carrot of playing at a higher level whereas if you play at the same level for a couple of years you might lose a few lads to emigration, work, or whatever.

“Because the lads now know they'll be playing against the likes of Tony Kelly or whoever it might be, it's a massive carrot and it makes training easier and committing to the whole thing easier.

“That's not to degrade where we were, but it just makes everything easier.”

Down’s promotion to Division 1 hurling is all the more impressive when you consider they have a pick of little more than 300 senior club hurlers in the whole county.

They punch above their weight because they have built a high quality coaching infrastructure in the county, something that Toner himself has been one of the chief architects of.

Back in 2017 he was involved in the establishment of a Player Pathway Programme designed to create a clear skills and preparation pathway from U-6 right up to U-20 which has had a very positive impact, and he's also been a driving force behind the county's enthusiastic participation in the Celtic Challenge.

He’s also heavily involved in the ‘Be Better’ hurling programme in the county which sees Down county team manager, Ronan Sheehan, and many of the Down senior hurlers coach close to 100 U-14 club hurlers over a five-week period every year.

That unity of purpose is probably one why the current Down side has such an evident team spirit that has helped them consistently come out on the right side of matches that come down to fine margins.

“They're a good bunch of lads who went to school together, who played underage hurling together, and who socialise a lot together which is big up home as well because a lot of lads are living close,” says Toner.

“The lads do get on very well and I think it's a major corner-stone of our success because without that I think you're in bother. For years in Down a lot of lads just didn't get on, that was the reality of it, and when that happens then any team is in bother.

“I never really thought that Down would be back in Division 1. I just didn't think we had the players to do it and then all of a sudden this group came and really stuck at it and plays a good brand of hurling.

“It makes selling our Academy squads to parents a lot easier now because we do compete against football a lot and Down football have bigger crowds at their games, they've all of those things.

“I've nothing against that at all but this will help us incentivise hurling a bit more. Your senior team is playing in Division 1 now, so let’s build on these pathways and bring more and more lads through. I think it's going to be easier to incentivise more young people to play the game."

Toner is a realist who knows that football is always going to be a bigger draw than hurling in the Mourne County, but he hopes that more and more people will now start to come out to support a county hurling team that has proven itself to have character as well as quality.

“We as players talk about this all the time, that the one thing that Down hurling misses out in is crowds at matches,” he says.

“I'm not sure why that's the way it has been in Down, but I would really love if we could get more people coming to our matches.

“Next year we'll be playing counties like Clare and Wexford and that's huge for Down hurling. I just hope we can get crowds coming to McKenna Park or Newry or wherever we're playing and especially that we can get more kids in through the gate.

“I go all around the county with my work and a lot of kids that are now hurling in the rest of the county are as good as any of the kids in the Ards but they never go to watch the matches or see the Down hurlers play.”

The three Ards clubs – Ballycran, Ballygalget, and Portaferry – have long been the backbone of Down hurling, but significant efforts to grow hurling outside of the peninsula is starting to pay off now.

Toner believes that by growing the base of the game in the county Down have the ability to really raise their level in the coming years.

“A lot of the guys who are coming through the academy squads predominantly now are from clubs outside of the Ards peninsula,” he says.

“I jumped on an U-15 county team bus in Portaferry last year and I think there were only six lads on the bus. 10 years ago there would have been 26 lads.

“It's all changing. There's definitely an appetite in other areas like Hilltown, Warrenpoint, Bredagh/Carrduff are pushing like mad as well.

“And there's definitely an appetite in south Down for hurling where we have the new Clann Mhúrn hurling club.

“Five football clubs - An Ríocht, Atticall, Ballymartin, Longstone and Glasdrumman - came together to make one hurling unit. That's been going now for three or four years and they're gaining real traction.

"Myself and the Down's new hurling GPO, Fergal Rogers, have been in the local primary schools in that area and there's a serious appetite for it. The kids are hardy and tough in that neck of the woods which helps.

“You also have Saul in the Downpatrick area who have gotten hurling going there as well.

“East Belfast are coming in too. They’re at the Go Games at the minute too. I would love to see them continue to go from strength to strengh because is a very short space of time they've done a lot of work.

“In order for Down to sustain playing in the Joe McDonagh then we probably need more clubs playing so we can pick from a bigger player pool.”

Toner is hopeful that the growth of hurling in Down will receive another timely shot in the arm with the planned construction of a Centre of Excellence in Ballykinlar.

“That's huge,” he says. “We as players talk about it all the time and we as staff talk about it all the time. You're constantly at the mercy of schools and clubs. At this time of the year nobody really wants to really give you their facilities.

“The senior hurling team hops around from place to place to place and that's the same for the footballers and lads just get on with it. But when Ballykinlar gets up and running it will be a complete game-changer.

“I know that term is used so much but for a county like us who is trying to do the right things in both hurling and football, if we all had one place to go where you'd have an environment that would almost make it like a club within a county because you'd have a home of your own, that would make everything so much easier.

“Everybody would know where training is, your development squads and county teams. I can't wait for it to start.”

When you join all the dots it draws a very encouraging picture for Down hurling.

Their senior intercounty team is very competitive, the game is growing beyond the Ards peninsula heartland, the various coaching and games development initiatives in the county are working well, and soon all of this growth will be further boosted by the Ballykinlar development.

“It’s definitely all encouraging and you would hope that other people would see that as well,” says Toner.

“People who are on the outskirts not knowing whether they'll go to a county match at the weekend or not.

“If they see all of this stuff happening they might think there is something here to get in behind. Sport is tough, any sport is tough to keep it going at a level that's going to attract peoples' attention, but it's definitely going in the right way at the minute.

“Now, it would take very little for it to go the opposite way as well, but you need to keep good people involved and try to get more good people involved as much as possible.”

Saturday, March 29

Allianz Hurling League Division 2 Final

Down v Kildare, Inniskeen, 1.30pm (TG4)