'We need a trophy'

Some of them may need a little space to realise it but opportunity knocks for the players on 16 inter-county panels who begin their Tailteann Cup campaign this weekend.

The likes of Down's Pierce Laverty reflected on what might have been when he spoke to RTE Sport this week.

Laverty was fully expecting to play championship football this weekend – only in the Ulster final instead of the Tailteann.

Down looked like they could beat Armagh for a fair chunk of the recent Ulster semi-final only to lose to a late winner from Jason Duffy.

That result ended the Mourne men's provincial title charge and denied them their place in the Sam Maguire series.

It’s a quick turnaround for Laverty to get his emotions in check and place his focus on another competition - but he says it has to be done.

"We fell short in last year’s final (against Meath)," he said.

"But this competition is crucial to our development to put a trophy on the table.

"We can take a lot from defeats over the past 12 months but now we must go learn from them and put things right. We need a trophy on the table and we want to win this competition."

GAA president Jarlath Burns is proud of the impact of the Tailteann Cup

Last year’s loss to Meath, this year’s league final loss to Westmeath and the narrow defeat to Armagh were tough ones to take.

"They were sore ones and the Armagh one will take a while to get over," he states.

"But we are making small progressions every year and we must push on now and test ourselves against the big teams.

"The week after that Armagh game there was a bit of flatness about, but we picked it up and went at it again in training. We want to win this competition."

Kildare’s Darragh Kirwan is another player from a team looking for silverware.

The Lilywhites' campaign has been much more demanding than Down’s but they are hopeful that they can turn things around with Longford coming to Hawkfield this Saturday.

"It was hard to go out of Leinster obviously as we had a chance to get to the final and the All-Ireland series," Kirwan said.

"But that didn’t happen and we have to refocus now."

Kildare have just one competitive win this season – over Wicklow in the championship – and lost all their league outings.

Kirwan says this is a chance to go again.

"It's the first step to try and build a bit of momentum and restore a bit of pride really," he said.

"We're still quite raw from the Louth game but it's an opportunity to put our best foot forward in this competition and we'll certainly be trying to do that.

"Any competition you enter you want to win it. We do want to get back here towards the end of June/July, all going well."

For the likes of Waterford, this competition is a chance to make more strides.

They beat Tipperary for the first time since 1988 in recent weeks and are looking forward to testing themselves in a tough group.

A rare meeting of Waterford and Kildare will take place in this year's competition

Captain Jason Curry is confident of a good showing.

"We played Leitrim and Longford already," he says.

"Against Longford there were only three points in it and we missed a good few chances.

"Leitrim had done more than us on the opening day so they are two games we can target.

"Kildare are the standout team and we want to put in a good performance against them.

"But beating Tipp was huge. It was my first Munster Championship game to win since I started playing and a great boost of confidence. Clare didn’t go our way.

"This competition keeps us playing and challenging. We had 11 players missing from last year and that’s a huge turnover so it’s important for us to keep developing.

"Any club team that comes out of Waterford is well able to compete and this will help us get our best players in and keep the momentum going."

The Saturday Game returns this weekend, with highlights and analysis of the day's GAA action on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 9.30pm.

Watch the Leinster Football Championship final, Dublin v Louth, and the Ulster Football Championship final, Armagh v Donegal, on Sunday from 1.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

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