Liam Doyle has no mixed feelings as Down prepare to face Cork in the 2010 All-Ireland final.

Under different circumstances, Doyle could have been preparing to line out for Down in Sunday's showdown. However, persistent knee problems have blighted the Liatroim clubman's intercounty career and he was unavailable to the county management team this year. But the 1999 All-Ireland minor winner will be one of the Mourne County's most vociferous supporters when the leather is thrown in at Headquarters this weekend.

One would imagine that Liam Doyle will experience mixed emotions going into Croke Park on Sunday afternoon. The current generation of Down footballers have confounded their critics by powering through to the All-Ireland final and they are only seventy minutes away from bringing Sam Maguire back to the border county for the first time since 1994. Liam would undoubtedly have been involved but for his troublesome knee - but there is no sense of bitterness, disappointment or remorse from the gifted left-footed player. Instead, he's getting 100% behind his former team-mates as they bid to make history.
Rather than feeling sorry for himself, Doyle is focusing on the positives and is delighted to see so many of his former (and, who knows, perhaps future…) county colleagues preparing for a deserved appearance on the biggest stage of all… "There's a great buzz around the county and there has been since they won the quarter-final," he states. "A lot of the younger supporters don't remember 1991 and '94, so they now have a team to look up to.

"It's great for the lads to have this opportunity and it's brilliant to see them realising their dream of playing in an All-Ireland final. Obviously, I'd love to be there with them and to be part of it but unfortunately due to injuries things didn't work out to plan the year. Like many other past players I wasn't fortunate enough to play in an All-Ireland semi-final or final but that's just the way it goes.
"I know the kind of work it takes to get this far and I know exactly how much these lads have put into Down football. They have really put in an unbelievable effort this year and I'm absolutely delighted for each and every one of the panel. It's great to see them get their just rewards."

Liam's last appearance for his county was against Armagh in the 2008 Ulster championship - a game that (to put it mildly) didn't go quite according to plan. He explains: "I got 20 minutes in Clones that day and it was a game that sticks out for all the wrong reasons. I was carrying a slight injury into the game and mid way through the first half I turned and unfortunately tore the cruciate in my left knee. I got an infection in the knee after that which put all rehab on hold for a period of time which wasn't ideal to say the least when trying to build the muscles back up. This last couple of years I've also been having trouble with tendonitis in the right knee. Unfortunately, it's the type of injury that doesn't go away and there's no real cure for it. I've been receiving treatment and basically we just try to manage it as best as we can. Hopefully the season isn't completely over for me and God willing I'll be pulling on a Liatroim Fontenoy's jersey in the near future in our fight against relegation."

Needless to say, he has very close ties with the current Down team and is probably better placed than most to weigh up their chances of beating the Rebels in the All-Ireland final. "I have played alongside most of the current panel," he notes. "I would have started out on the same panel with the likes of Benny, Ronan Murtagh, Ronan Sexton and John Clarke, coming up through the minor ranks and then into senior. I was there for a good while and I know they have put in a lot of hard work over the past ten years. None of them have ever had a chance to play in an All-Ireland final before, but their work and dedication has been exceptional and I really hope they can go a stage further."

Had things worked out differently, Liam could well have been part of the Mourne County panel this weekend. He trained with the squad earlier in the year and also did some work on his own but unfortunately things didn't go as hoped and, once he realized that he couldn't regain 100% fitness, he did the honest thing by dropping out. He has stayed in touch with the players and management team and medical staff and is enjoying his role as an ardent Down supporter:

"I've been up at the last couple of games in Croke Park and of course I would have done anything to be running out alongside the lads. I suppose I'd like to think that maybe if I'd been 100% fit perhaps I would have had something to contribute but when you look at where they are now and what they've achieved so far this year it's clear the current crop of players have proved their worth!

"They kept their belief after the Tyrone game, when a lot of people were knocking them down, and now they are through to an All-Ireland final. They've shown great spirit and it's going to be a huge occasion for Down on Sunday."

Liam first played for his county at minor level in 1998 and captained the team from centre half back the following year as the Mourne U18s won the All-Ireland MFC final at Croke Park, beating Mayo in the final. He graduated onto the senior team the following year and made his debut against Antrim in Casement Park - another occasion to forget as the Saffrons sprung a surprise result that day.

Looking ahead to Sunday's game, Liam has resisted the temptation to hog the limelight and travel with the team: "I'll be travelling up with friends and family," he says. "James gave me the option to travel up with the team but I feel it would be unfair to join in now. I will be behind the boys 100% and hopefully I'll be travelling back up the motorway home alongside thousands of other happy fans looking forward to welcoming the boys home on Monday evening. That would be a remarkable feeling in itself. Everybody will want to be there on the day and there will be a serious scramble for tickets but this is still a relatively young side, so hopefully there will be plenty more occasions like this for them."

Liam's father Willie Doyle was centre half back on the Down team that won the All-Ireland in 1968. To this day, Willie rarely misses a Down game and he'll be in Croke Park on Sunday to cheer the latest crop of Mourne heroes on.

A quantity surveyor with McLaughlin & Harvey (Building & Civil Engineering Contractors) in Mallusk, just outside Belfast, where he has worked for the past five years, Liam is currently working on developing a new critical care building at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He disagrees with the common perception that this Down team has come from nowhere: "A lot of people are saying they came from nowhere but there are a lot of players there who won All-Irelands in 1999 and 2005, so there was always quality in the county but I feel we just never got the rub of the green before. The talent has always been there but the consistency was lacking. I always believed they had it in them and I knew they were working extremely hard.

"It's difficult to pinpoint what exactly has been the difference this year. The addition of Marty Clarke to the team has been a major boost to everyone, but you've also guys that have come in, like Kalum King who has made a major impact round the middle of the field this year. You've guys like Rony Murtagh and Conor Maginn that have come into games and had a major bearing on the result. The work rate of the whole team in particular is a credit to the work these lads have done on the training field and to be honest you wouldn't expect anything less under the guidance of a management structure made up of James, Paddy, Brian and Jerome. I don't think at this stage it matters what the difference is or how or why we've got this far. We're just delighted to be back in an All-Ireland final." Tweet

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