Down midfielder Peter Turley.
By John Harrington
Down midfielder Peter Turley says a new-found sense of self-belief and ambition within the panel has been key to their run to Sunday’s Ulster SFC Final.
In previous years he admits too many players simply didn’t think they were good enough to beat the best teams in the province.
But now he’s confident they’re all travelling to Clones on Sunday fully believing they can pull off a shock against Tyrone.
“When we got to the Ulster final in 2012 I think we were fully expected to get to the final so there wasn’t really the same buzz about it at the time,” says Turley.
“I can remember playing Tyrone in Omagh and we lost in the replay.
“I remember I was travelling up and down with boys, they weren’t in the starting 15, and their attitude was ‘what’s the point? We’re not going to beat Tyrone'.
“I was saying, ‘why are you coming all the way up here to training if you don’t believe we can beat them?’
“That was the attitude we had and that’s the attitude we had against Monaghan last year.
“This year has just been completely different.
“'We’re going to beat these boys,’ that’s the attitude we had for Monaghan. We felt if things went our way and it was in the melting pot in the last five minutes it could go our way, and that’s exactly what happened.
“It was a 50-50 game. That’s what you’re aiming for, just to be in the game in the very last five minutes.”
Peter Turley
Turley’s commitment to the Down cause cannot be questioned because combining inter-county football with his job as a fireman isn’t easy.
It was impossible in 2010 and 2011 when he had no option but to withdraw from the panel, but now he’s just about able to make it work thanks to the help of a sympathetic watch commander.
“It’s very difficult,” says Turley. “That’s why in 2010, 2011 I had to step back. I couldn’t do it with my time.
“It was all down to a fella Maurice Field, who played rugby for Ulster and Ireland when he was in the fire brigade and he always found it difficult to get time off.
“He became my watch commander and he basically said if I ever get a chance to go back to the county, to make sure and take it. He said he would do whatever he could to get me to trainings, he’d work with me 100 percent.
“Before then, you might have had someone who just wasn’t into the Gaelic and don’t know what it means to people.
“They’d just be doing their job but Maurice said if I get a chance to take it with both hands.”
At 32 years of age Turley is the oldest player in the Down panel and is viewing this Ulster Final as an opportunity to make all the sacrifices he’s made over the years to play football at the highest level worthwhile.
“I have been playing for a long time and I haven’t won much of note,” he says.
“I won an Intermediate Championship with the club and I haven’t really won anything else.
“We won a McKenna Cup way back, Dan Gordon was the captain.
“I played the first game in that against Tyrone and never played again after that.
“It’s going from looking back and saying ‘I enjoyed myself but I never really won anything’ to a different story if we win this.
“I hope that’s the case because I don’t have many years left.”
