Down manager Conor Laverty says his team will need to up their level of performance from yesterday’s victory over Antrim if they are to progress further in the Ulster SFC.

The Mourne men edged by the Saffrons with a 0-13 to 0-9 win in Newry, where they’d led by three at half-time and, speaking to BBC Sport NI after the game, Laverty admitted that improvement is needed ahead of their semi-final showdown with either Fermanagh or Armagh.

"Listen, if that was the level of performance... it just wasn't the level of performance that this team aspires to get to," said the Kilcoo clubman.

"It's not the reason why I took the job for our players, and I feel we have a talented bunch of players.

"Whenever people would have talked about the Derry and the Dublin match, it was a great game for the neutral to watch. I'm sure there wouldn't have been too many neutrals impressed with that game now.

“Antrim set up with a deep block, defended narrow and we knew they were going to come with that and we put a lot of practice into how to deal with that.

"But as a group and me as manager, we have to find better ways of dealing with this."

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