Down defender Aidan Carr says that Division One was a tough place for the Mourne County's young stars to try and find their feet this past season.

Eamonn Burns' side lost all seven of their league outings before exiting the All-Ireland SFC via defeats to Monaghan and Longford but Carr is confident they'll be able to turn things around in 2017.

"Results definitely didn't go our way, that's for sure. It was tough. A lot of boys were inexperienced in terms of county football and Division One is a very tough place to learn," Carr said in today's Irish News.

"Any mistake you make, you're getting punished - you saw that with the two top teams on Sunday (Dublin and Mayo). As a management team, they were late starting last year and they were learning on their feet as well. We had some great performances - Monaghan, Mayo and Cork in the league. If a few small things had changed, we wouldn't have ended up with no wins.

"Whenever you come to the end of the league and you're sitting bottom with no points, it's a tough place. Obviously, the media and supporters - nobody likes to see a team doing that poorly, so it's a topic of conversation for everybody, unfortunately."

On next year's start to Division Two (at home to Fermanagh), Carr added: "It's a nice opener, with Pete (McGrath) coming to Newry on the Saturday night (with Fermanagh). It'll be really important for Down to start well next year, so they can build a bit of confidence."

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