Down manager Eamonn Burns took encouragement from his side's performance against Monaghan.

While defeat was the Mourne County's lot for the second weekend in-a-row, their display was much improved on that against Donegal eight days earlier.

"We're disappointed that we didn't get anything out of the game," Burns told the Irish News.

"We created chances and I thought we created enough chances to win. At the end of the day, conditions were tough and we're happy with our performance, but not with the result.

"It was a good improvement on last week but when we look back at it, things didn't go our way and we felt we were closer to Donegal than the scoreboard suggested."

Burns was already looking forward to the visit of Kerry - who are also point-less after the first two rounds - to Newry in three weeks' time.

"We'll get our heads down and there's plenty of work to do," he continued.

"We have a lot of lads in this year and we brought a few of them on today. We're happy with the progress they're making but we have a lot of work to do.

"Division One is going to be a battle, there's not a whole lot between the teams and I thought we showed today that we can play with the best of them. So we're looking forward to Kerry in a couple of weeks' time."

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