Down legend Michaela Downey still has the hunger to carry on

Despite hanging up her football boots on a couple of occasions in the past, Down stalwart Michaela Downey once again found herself gracing the local scene in the Mourne County earlier this year.

An All-Ireland junior football championship winner with Down at Croke Park back in October 2000 alongside her sister Aoibheann, Downey had initially opted to retire from all levels of football as a player in 2016.

She subsequently returned to club action with the Newry-based St John Bosco four years later, but a serious bike accident in the early months of 2021 saw her once again placing football on the back burner.

Yet the start of 2024 saw Downey being selected on an Ireland Masters side for an International Rules Series against Australia and this gave her the appetite for another club football comeback. While Bosco weren't in a position to field an adult team in the current season, she did line out in the colours of the nearby Clonduff – who she had previously represented under similar circumstances.

At 44 years of age, she played a pivotal role in helping Clonduff to reach the semi-final stage of this year’s Down intermediate football championship, where they eventually lost out to Saul.

"My boots had been nailed to the wall for a good few years. Then when I got the opportunity this year to play with the Masters International Rules, I thought 'you know what, I could give this another go’ and enjoyed my time playing. So I thought ‘I’m going to have another go at it’.

"I was very lucky that in Clonduff this year, there was about five or six girls around the same age as me that went back to play this year. They’re maybe not 43 or 44. I’m 44 now, but there’s five of them were over 40, put it that way. Just 40 or 41 and I would have