This early exposure to senior football will serve the youngsters well and the Downings joint-boss stated that it’s ‘good grounding’ for them. “It gave us the chance to blood some players, we’ve four seventeen or eight year-olds that have played a fair bit in the league. But Meath star Cian McBride is back with the group this term and Gallagher stated that the preparations are going well. Downings have been drawn to face Naomh Conaill and Glenswilly in the opening two rounds of the Senior Championship. We’ve been down in intermediate and we might find ourselves down there in time to come but everyone wants to be playing Senior Championship football.”