The Mourne County have finally named their starting fifteen for tomorrow’s All-Ireland quarter-final showdown with our lads at Croke Park (throw-in 5pm). Here it is:

Down (All-Ireland SFC quarter-final v Mayo, 4/8/2012): Brendan McVeigh; Darren O’Hagan, Dan Gordon, Conor Garvey; Niall McParland, Kevin McKernan, Brendan McArdle; Ambrose Rogers, Kalum King; Aidan Carr, Mark Poland, Conor Maginn; Brendan Coulter, Conor Laverty, Eoin McCartan.

Like ourselves, Down haven’t named their list of replacements at this stage.

That starting fifteen shows just one change from the side that started in their Round 4 qualifier victory over Tipperary last Saturday – into the team comes Kevin McKernan at centre-back and out goes Kevin Duffin who started in the half-forwards last weekend – but that single alteration is accompanied by what looks like a bewildering amount, eight in all, of positional switches. This jersey shifting sees Darren O’Hagan take 2 instead of 4, Niall McParland 5 instead of 2, Conor Garvey 4 instead of 6, Aidan Carr 10 instead of 5, Conor Maginn 12 instead of 10, Benny Coulter 13 instead of 14, Conor Laverty 14 instead of 15 and Eoin McCartan – you’ve guessed it – 15 instead of 13.

The team that Wee James has named above also contains ten of the side that started against us down in Castlebar back in March: McVeigh, Gordon, Garvey, McParland, Rogers, King Carr, Poland, Maginn and Laverty all lined from the start for them that day.